There's a big empty space, a vacant lot there now. House after house, and then this big empty space. It's where a house used to be.
I remember the smell of smoke and the heavy black clouds, and then the giant orange tongues licking at the cold January air. It was magnificent. Everyone came running, almost hypnotized by its majesty and power. Within you something cried out "more!" The beauty and force almost drew you into it. I wanted to laugh, applaud, and praise the gods for fire — beautiful, magnificent fire.
The people who lived there were all safely outside. It was the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree, left up past the safe point for Christmas trees. It was dry, and the spark, maybe from a little bulb, or a cigarette, ignited it. They blaze very quickly, Christmas trees. It was gone within a minute or two. You'd expect that of Christmas trees — but houses? It took only a little longer and the house was gone. The whole house.
It began to grow dark; there were no more excited voices yelling orders back and forth. The crowd had dispersed. There was nothing more to see. Nothing. The street lights came on just as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened beneath them. Their light illuminated the eerie scene below. The water, having done its job, now lay at rest in frozen forms everywhere. The street was a lake of ice, the sidewalk a mass of wood and broken furniture and bits and pieces of a family's treasures.
The house was now but a few pillars of wood, a heap of boards all charred and splintered, a mountain of rubble decorated with the sparkle of shattered glass. The sight was more than I could comprehend.
Two hours before this was a house. A house like all the other houses on the block — in between this one and that one. A place to celebrate Christmas, and do late-night homework, and bring groceries into, and pop corn and watch TV, and scrub and paint, and, and, and for me to look at whenever I walked down our street. That house never struck me until now — it was gone. My nostrils stung, my eyes smarted, my hair had the smell of smoke. It was now a part of me — inside of me — for my lungs were filled with all that remained of the house.
I think we should have sung, or prayed, or done something instead of just watching it go.
Later that night I sat comfortably in my favorite chair and thought. It was not just a house that burned, it was a church. Maybe even a tabernacle, for it housed something very sacred; it was the dwelling place of the life of that family. Enshrined in its protective stone and wood were memories and hopes, and lots of `things'. Things like a favorite chair, a homemade gift, pictures of moments never to be relived. And inside that building the family no doubt had fought and forgiven, reconciled, sacrificed, and celebrated together. It was church — a dwelling place of the spirit — the spirit invisible, yet present within the life of a family. That is why it is so difficult for me to think about that big empty space there... you know...where a house used to be.
I think we should have sung, or prayed — blessed it — or something.
It was beautiful, the fire, so powerful and majestic. Tongues of flame leaping into the air. Rumbling, crackling, shaking the very ground on which it stood. A ceremony fitting the death of a church. Its history, memories, dreams, all the sacred moments in the life of a family became like incense mixed with the smoke that I took inside of me — in my lungs, in my soul. Took home with me where I sat, cradled in the arms of my favorite chair, and wept.