Fire

James untangled the leash and took Lilly on a brisk jog around the perimeter of the park. Twilight was a couple minutes off, and the wind was taking unholy delight in ruffling the geese on the pond. The noise, the setting sun, the little dog trotting by his heels all made James grateful to be alive.

Intensely grateful.

In fact, his heart hurt, he was so thankful to be alive, this moment, this day. He reached the gate of the park and stopped, leaning against one of the guarding pillars. He wrapped the leash tightly around his hand and felt the burn on his palm. An owl called from silent wings; the geese shuffled and honked; Lilly yipped and turned - the cacophony of earth sounds was too much, he was overcome, drowning.

Breathe.

It was March 2, 1964. He, James Arnold Vanders, was thirty-six years old. He was employed at the Griffon&Hearst Financial Advising Center, and he had a three bedroom house half a mile from the park, address 66 North Brockton Drive, Boston, Massachusetts. He had one window box with geraniums and he wondered if they needed to be watered.

That thought calmed him. Breathe in, breathe out, blink and notice how the darkness spreads. A slow smile followed a long exhale. James straightened up, rather embarrassed, and ambled home in the glow of a hundred street lamps. Life is a common gift, all is right with the world, and Lilly is eager for her dinner.

That night on Brockton Drive a fire broke out. Two whole apartment complexes burned to the ground. No one was killed, but the residents lost everything. One woman grabbed her favorite coffee mug and her husbands fishing gaiters. A young man escaped with his art portfolio and leopard print long-johns. A couple got out with their newborn and $15 worth of diapers and baby food.

James Vanders came down the street with blankets and a first aid kit, and opened his home to anyone who needed shelter. He was horrified at the women's tears and men's silent stares - the look of people cast loose, unmoored from possession & sense of ownership. He cooked for them, he washed towels and gave away shirts and slacks and long-unused baby clothes. Lilly licked their hands (and occasionally their faces) and gradually the flame-reflections faded from their eyes. After two weeks, the last of them had gone and the rubble was completely cleared. A few more months and another complex would be erected--life would go on, the same as before.

But not for James. Twilight saw him anxious. Lilly whined at the door, but he never took down the red leash.

He was pondering. He looked around his house, at the outline of geraniums through the window, his grandmother's spinning wheel in the corner, his dead wife's doily display of their wedding pictures, at the boxes of records from Griffon&Hearst, at the little details that made 66 Brockton part of himself.

And he was afraid.

If it burned and was destroyed, part of him would be destroyed. He felt like the prince lost in the labyrinth-the princess at the entrance had kissed him and given him a magic ball of thread and he had taken it with singing. Only now when his life was tangled in its skein did he realize that she could doom him in a fickle instant and cut him loose forever, leave him broken and vulnerable.

He was angry. From birth he had been given things to care for and protect and take care of-there had been no choice involved. Without his consent parts of his affection had been trapped into things, his happiness trapped like a dandelion captured in a glass globe. Lilly whined again, and for an instant James was tempted to shake off these thoughts and run to the park. Yet he would not be truly alive this time, because parts of him would here in this dark apartment, that throbbed with his life and memories. He became angry. He wanted back his freedom, he wanted back his soul, he wanted to take the power from the princess, shatter the paperweight, and see the sunset as a whole man.

Lilly barked as he walked over to his pipe rack and took down a package of matches. The files from Griffon&Hearst made a formidable pile and the spinning wheel was in the close corner. He put on his hat and coat, snapped the leash on his dog (because a dog is different, a dog is a friend, you choose your dog) and walked out in the light of a hundred street lamps. Soon their light was overcome by the glow of 66 Brockton Drive, as it snapped and crackled and burned.

But it didn't matter to James Arnold Vanders. He would never have the flame-reflection in his eyes, because he had cut the thread and braved the labyrinth. From this time forth the fire in his eyes would come from his own soul, the whole man.

He was truly alive.