The Fire

The Fire

Down the block from Freddy, smoke, invisible at first, then a conspicuous, menacing slate color, rose from the windows of an old colonial. He smelled it before he saw it gathering in columns above the roof, darkening the sky and bringing a short burst of joy to Freddy’s heart. Fire trucks whining and circling like angry, buzzing insects to the light, Freddy knew he could satisfy his unquenchable urge if he acted quickly. He leapt out of bed, practically landing in his tennis shoes, pushing down their backs with his heels. No socks for this endeavor.

Freddy knew what the house was made of by the smell. A dark wood, possibly oak. Mahogany furniture inside, no doubt.

No one was in the building. Freddy had seen the family pack up and load their things in a giant moving truck a week ago and no one had returned to the old yellow home that Freddy saw from his lookout post in his attic, which he fondly referred to privately as his sniper’s nest.

The air was cold for the time of year. Freddy hustled to the chaotic heat waves around the house, which had sprouted two horns of flame, erupting from the second floor over the once-stately, centered door frame and vanishing into a void of black smoke, like a patch against the night sky.

A man in a hoodie walked by him, his back, uncaring, to the blaze. Freddy scowled at him, trying to find his eyes. The man’s hood formed an impenetrable shadow over his face against the fire, now curling out of the house’s main door. Wide, unbroken flames, like the tongues of demons, shot out at upward angles, blistering the door’s red paint and burnishing the iron grate below the peephole.

As the man passed Freddy, he stopped walking to let his eyes follow the back of the man’s head as it bobbed casually away from him, without a glance behind at the fire breaking the symmetrical, top floor windows. The man disappeared into the darkness.

Freddy forgot him and became absorbed by the fire. He had always loved to burn things, but he never had the nerve to destroy buildings, to cause havoc with his love, which some would call “closeted” pyromania. The old colonial had been there for decades, renovated a few times, remodeled. It was a point of pride for the family, until today. Now, Freddy felt almost proud to behold the orange and red flames, no hints of blue and green, he could see, a clean burn. It blossomed before him, drying his eyes and blasting his face, but he didn’t care.

Someone had actually done it. Freddy had long fantasized about burning a house down. Once, he dreamt about the house he watched now. The fire gnawed through the side wall and the roof was only dark wooden beams, like blackened bones, against the bright burn.

The hooded man was a man like him, only he was braver than Freddy. Freddy only watched and waited to feel the breath of the fire on his skin. Sometimes he would take his yard waste and burn it in some forgotten lot.

He could feel his feet sweating into his shoes. His face was roasting in the heat billowing from the house. He could hear the sirens above the crackling and whooshing of the blaze. He could only admire it for a few more precious moments. He sighed.

The buildings around him glowed orange in the light, then alternating blue and red from the fire trucks and emergency vehicles screaming up to the scene from behind Freddy.