The Fire Burns ~ JACKSON RASSIAS

The Fire Burns

JACKSON RASSIAS

I remember the sound of something hooing, which you would assume to be an owl, only I always heard it in the middle of the day— this persistent smell of lawn clippings that dominated your senses. I remember the amount silky handfuls of yellow dust that poured from the trees, so much that it caked nearly every surface, including my four-year-old self. I wasn’t allergic to pollen then.

When we first moved in, hundreds of these shrubs obscured the background. Carved from a broken brown clay, they had branches reminiscent of old rotting finger bones. The shrubs were quickly removed, with the exception of a small patch in the northeastern corner, and thrown into our opaque bronze fire pit. Those decayed branches created a warm winter, one with aromas of charred wood and an ambiance of its expanding moisture. Soon after, my family purchased a single teak Adirondack chair, quite durable. An interesting decision for a family of three, but this resolved itself quickly: it was around that fire pit, during that warm winter, sitting on that Adirondack chair, that I learned about my soon to be baby brother. Day crossing his nightly threshold, and the shadows of my parents and me danced as an infant fire changed the natural light across the imperfectly groomed lawn. After both my brothers were born, I never again heard the hoo of that owl. The removal of those gnarled shrubs also gave light to a ruined, beat up rockwall— constructed from arrays of mismatched stones that somehow just fit together, light refracted off of some and consumed by others. A strong breeze would provide enough force to shift the foundation, so a slightly adapted wall greeted us year after year. Behind that northern wall stood an onyx wire fence. Twists of cream honeysuckle encircled the wires, flowering white to contrast the jet. The fence served as a final barrier between my yard and the neighboring country club golf course. However, this barrier was anything but impenetrable. My brothers and I made a habit of scavenging the yard, searching for dimpled pearls—those golfers always overshot the fifth green. Because of our expeditions, we never had to purchase a golfball as we found infinite ProV1s, enough to lose five balls a hole, and still never see the bottom of the shoebox in which we kept them. Eventually, I grew older, the fence got torn down, and the northern wall got rebuilt to become something far more cohesive and robust than his predecessor. One day, my father wanted a real fire pit, so we discarded the old bronze one and began digging into our earth. We used the saved mismatched stones of the previous rock wall as a foundation. They insulate well. They keep the fire burning even without someone always there to tend it. Nevertheless, we were always close enough to chuck a log on. I now sit alone by that same fire pit, surrounded by the duplicates of the one Adirondack. However, no matter how crisp the new ones look by comparison, I only ever sit in the original—still in good condition. Late that night, while the fire burns, I find myself staring at the northeastern corner of the yard, where the new and old rock walls meet, where the fence used to be. Where the only remaining gnarled shrubs are, the ones that my parents never decided to clear out, and I just

realized why. Now, a senior in high school, I see these burning bushes as a preservation of a moment. A moment when a family of three bought their first house. A moment when their son was still young and dependent. I never stood in that corner in my thirteen years living here: I never wanted to approach the sinister shrubs. This childish notion cemented itself with me, and it warped my perception of those bushes. But now, I see them for what they are, the roots of my childhood and the branches of my adolescence. And this can be scary, especially to a child, but I’m not anymore. I know this now, just as the embers still glow, and I live the final year in my backyard.

Fiction