Turn the Fire
His Nike footprint laid fresh and flat across an ants' nest, exposing its inhabitants to the beating midday sun and a thin smoke emanating from various torn pieces of cardboard inserted at points into the brush pile. It was an accident. He'd noted the thing's placement throughout their dragging of tree parts to the fire pit but, perhaps in the excitement of match lighting, had lapsed in concern. Now tiny red things undulated like a magma upon bright brown granules, in searching desperation. "News says the waves is measuring a hundred feet; says they're reaching San Francisco," the Orchard owner said. "I heard it." The Big One had finally struck down on the mighty state of California, but from this distant parcel of Georgian farm land it might as well have been Communist China. "Not one for the morose, eh." The owner took to a strand of dry bone branches, snapping them into twigs; working into the growing nest to be set ablaze...