without a fire

From Infidelity

This excerpt comes from the story “without a fire” in my book Infidelity. A moment of winter stillness, where warmth and emptiness live side by side.

We’ve been skiing all day. Cross country on a sunny, warm February day. Across the fields, down through the hardwoods into the evergreens of the swamp then up across Maple Ridge. Both of us working our bodies hard, but making only the slightest sounds. Skis shooshing against snow, arms pumping poles, lungs sucking air, noses sniffling. Yet it is enough to send cottontails zigzagging into brush cover, enough to rattle the blue jays so that they caterwaul a forest-wide warning and the curious chickadees keep a close eye on us, dipping and bobbing, chirping and calling, as we make the wide circle around our property and return home.

It’s night. Kali and I are outside. The bonfire’s burning and we are ripe with the heat. Everything feels familiar and is good, but something is gone. Something is present. Things are not the same. During our time together, during our cross country trip, I have lost and gained. The unbroken snow. The naked maples. The steadfast evergreens. Frightened cottontails. Squawking jays. Curious chickadees. My wife following, as I plowed the trail. All of these things have taken and given, and I feel something has rooted itself inside. It is shapeless and fluid and unrecognizable to me. It is a knot of emptiness growing, filling my gut, occupying a sense of space that used to feel solid and sure.

…When I lift up the tarp there are only two pieces of firewood left. Small ones for kindling. I’m puzzled. Drained. Confused. So much so that I am still for a moment, thinking about where the wood might have gone.

How many fires have we had?

Why haven’t I cut more wood?

How long before it is out for good?

~ K.J.