On Fires and Forecasts

Sitting by a fire at the cabin on Big Butternut, Waffle Guy fell uncharacteristically silent as he gazed into the flames.

"Where'd you go?" I asked.

"Nowhere," he said. "Just thinking about fire."

"What about it?" I prodded, concerned that he was about to reveal a dormant pyromania within.

"It's fascinating. You can't predict it, really," he said. "I mean, you can predict that if you light something flammable, it will burn. And you can predict how wind direction might affect it. But you can never even begin to imagine what shapes the flames will make while the fire is burning."

He moved a bag of marshmallows to make room for me at his side.

"It's so complicated," he said. "It's like, we can sort of predict the weather. We can predict a storm, and know where it will hit, and we can tell whether it will be hot or cold. But no one can tell you what shapes you'll see in the clouds. Except with a fire, it's right there in that fire pit. It's so small, and it's so complicated."

Evening sun set the scarlet tops of distant cumulus clouds ablaze while sparks popped from burning oak logs, and I knew that we, too, were beautiful and random and complex and unscripted. I thought about predictions: We will never know what shapes we might take, but we know that there will be love.