It's so hot out today, and the air is just about thick with smoke. I bet if I'd left my window open this morning, the smoke alarm would be going off inside the house. The air smells.
The wind must have shifted since yesterday. That fire has been burning a week, and it's still only 50% contained. But the air was clear, before - they had all the smoke in Davenport, leagues north of here in a wide arc around the circumference of ash-blackened inferno that used to be some of the coolest woods around. But the wind has shifted since yesterday, and now I live downwind of the fire. I guess that means it's coming for ME next.
I should mention at this point that I'm in no real peril, or I shouldn't be. The 50% contain is pretty much blocking its path back this way.
A wind blows across and around and over me. The smoke of it sticks, settling in my hair and clothes. The haze that fills this wooded valley is so uniform that it seems to hang motionless against the hills, despite the hot, steady wind that carries with it the acrid stink of approaching catastrophe. The stink of scorched earth, torched lives and blackened dreams. The stink of HOT DEATH.
FIRE! EVERYONE! FIRE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!
Now would be a good time to catch a movie in a crowded theater.
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