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.
    "Oh, it's all quite fascinating--man's plight upon this earth is; how he must abide by indifferent forces of Nature."
    "Ain't you a believer in the Lord, boy?"
    "No sir, can't says I is, in truth."
    "Did your mother raise ye to believe, at least?"
    "That she did."
    "Then you're saved, in any case."
    "If it makes you feel better to assume that."
    "I know it." The owner relocated an already lit shred of cardboard, burning himself slightly in the process. Spidery orange fingers reached up through the kindling which snapped and wilted and quickly caught. "All children rebel against their parents. That itself's a force of Nature."
    "Once a believer, always a believer?"
    "Once saved--always saved."