Fire Chaser

After dinner, Claire saw a distant glow and drove across town to see the fire. Charles, who was on a first date with her, was in the car. They were classmates at the community college but also worked together in a grocery store, and he asked her out. “Just as friends,” she said. They had gone out for pizza with other workers, some who were in college. But Claire and Charles found themselves working together in an aisle.

“Do you often chase fires,” he asked as they stood together.

“Every now and then.” Her eyes glistened, and she smiled.

He shrugged his shoulders. “To each her own.”

Jenny, her older sister, always shook her head. Never let people know too much about you. They might get the wrong idea. Her parents told her, as well. She must keep family secrets. She must keep this life close to her vest. Someone might want to put you away.

But that was so long ago, Claire replied.

Claire’s shoulders quivered as she drove. They bore the weight of the secrets she held, the secret only her family had known. But she glanced at Charles and smiled as his hand brushed hers. She thought, Maybe I can tell him some day, but a cloud passed through her mind. Or maybe he won’t understand and run away.

Only she and her family knew.

An old brick grade school burned. Flames burned through the roof, and a thick cloud of smoke rose into the night sky. She joined the others who gazed at the fire, as if it were a carnival. She gasped as tongues of flames licked the dark sky. Charles wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She patted his hand.

Something inside reminded her that it wasn’t just bricks and mortar. It was just books that burnt

but memories. The school would be no more, when children, turned adults would have no place to

return. Still a shot of adrenaline ran through her.

“I’m fine,” she said, a refrain she said since she was a child. She knew that she never burned down a building. But she lit fires in corner of her parents’ living room.

She wanted to shout out, but covered her mouth with her hand. If he knew, he wouldn’t want to see me again.

Streams of water were poured onto the flames, but everyone knew it was too late. The building would be turned to ashes, and firefighters would have to douse hot spots until the afternoon. The playground would be covered with rubble.

Claire’s friendships in high school were strained. Little did she want classmate to learn the secrets she held. She just wanted to complete her time and move on. Through the years, this compulsion shadowed her.

She looked at Charles, and noticed there was something special about him If I lose him, I’ll die, she thought.

After an hour, they left. He invited him to his place, and she agreed. They had the next day off from work. They sat together on the patio of his apartment and looked at the stars. He said that he wanted to get to know her better and she took a deep breath. If only I could let him know, she thought. He’s such a nice guy, but she wondered if he’d drift away from her like the others.

He lit a candle on the dining table, and she smiled as it flickered and burned. A string of smoke curled into the air. She took a deep breath of the fragrance of lilac and melted wax.

He put on soft rock. She leaned back into the sofa cushion and closed her eyes. This is so good, but will it last?

She heard Jenny’s voice and said, “Leave me alone.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just talking to myself.”

He laughed. “I hope it turns into a good conversation.”

In Intro to Psychology, the instructor said, It isn’t just what you say to others, but what you say to yourself. But he also said, Your parents and family live in your head. May they be kind.

After she got home, Claire turned out the lights, but she saw a flame. She saw one fire, and she saw one thousand fires, and all the fires that could have been, if her sister hadn’t stopped her. The fire lived inside her. This she could not let Charles see.

She stepped into the bathroom. The light from a lamppost streaked into the room. Looking at the mirror, she noticed her face was fine, and remembered the illness stirred inside her. “Please forgive me,” she cried out. “I haven’t started a fire in years.”

She called her sister, and her sister’s voice was drowsy. “I met someone,” Claire cried out. “What do I do?”

After a long pause, her sister said, “I’ve been doing some thinking. That was a long time ago. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Claire apologized. “I’m sorry for getting you up. I think he’s different from the others.”

“Maybe it’s time to forget about what you did. You were just a child.”

Claire breathed a sigh of relief. “I guess we all do crazy things as kids.”

Jenny said, “Like when I ran away after lunch, but got hungry and came back for supper. Our parents didn’t even notice.”

“You did?”

“These things don’t matter. Now go to bed.”

Claire sat on the bed of her darkened room, and looked at the stars as they shone for her. They burned like fires in the sky, giving of their lives for her. She remembered that the universe started with an explosion. After an hour she lay down and closed her eyes. Maybe things will be okay, but a voice said that she must look at the site of the fire once more. That will be the last time, she promised herself.

There was a hint of smoke in the air the next morning as she stood in a patch of grass outside a newly-erected chain link fence. Birds sang and flew through the air. She never knew why she liked fires as much as she did. It was such a dumb thing, she thought, but she couldn’t explain it to herself.

She didn’t know if she needed to tell him or not. She figured that if she never went to another fire, she wouldn’t need to. And she’d see him in class in the afternoon.

Tall grasses in nearby field waved in a gust of wind, and she knew that the land that died would find new life again.

Claire and Charles walked across the Central Campus in the afternoon, and she hugged him when he asked her out for a second date. “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”