As he barreled down the road toward Whispering Pines, he tried to think of a particular word, a word that meant something was one’s destiny, an ultimate goal that one would eventually reach whether they wanted to or not. Nirvana, he thought. Later he would realize that it wasn’t quite the word he was looking for. Destiny, fate, Everest—all of those would have been more appropriate. But right then, as the firefighter drove to the biggest fire of his career, that was the phrase that kept coming to mind. This is my Nirvana.
