The Fire Place

She watched the fire in the fire place burn with a faint glow as she sat on the couch with a leather covered journal, a cup of coffee and a peanut butter sandwich to keep her company.

She loved watching the fire burn. She loved watching how the wood would slowly change in color to become a charcoal and then ash. Ash that is at once suffocating and at once healing. She marveled at the soft music of moisture being taken away by the heat of the fire from the logs. She wondered what the moisture would feel like. Did it hurt or did the moisture take pleasure in that burning; very much like the lover taking pleasure in pain.

She loved the smell of burning wood that would engulf the home; the smell that would begin at one end of the log and proceed to the other. This smell was natural, it gave her the assurance that earth was nearby. Earth where she felt safe, earth to whom she returned after each flight, earth to where she would always belong.

As she sat by the fireplace, soaked her cold hands in the heat of the flames, she found herself playing with the smoke that arose from the place. She wished that she could create imprints from smoke on the pages of her journal. But she could only create imprints in her memory. So she did that. She waited to see if the imprints could create a ripple of imprints just like ink did on subsequent sheets of paper.

But she was too involved in watching the fire in the fire place burn with the faint glow..