The sounds of my cousins laughing from outside the tent filled my head as I woke up. I got up, and unzipped the tent and saw them, just sitting around a languid fire. It was 7 in the morning so the fire was expected to be dead, the trees, however, were brushed by the wind of life. The calming sensation of the trees, with the early morning breeze, woke me as I got out of the tent. The warmth of the sun filled my soul as I brushed my eyes with my cold hands. Leaves of every color fell to the ground, and I, like the singing birds in the sky, was ecstatic for the new day.

As I got out of the tent, it moved. My cousins turned around all at once and said good morning in unison, like cyborgs. I sat down by the rustic fire, it had died down to a superficial layer of red smoke, brushing in the breeze, as the time went by. I picked up a log near the dead fire, I wanted to start the fire again but I noticed the fire beginning to shift. The slow flame hadn’t died down from the night before so I let it be, I gave it the chance to die down on its own. The profundity of a fire breathing its last breath struck me as beautiful.

My mind went somewhere dark, very quickly:

Then the fire went out. It made me think about life for a while, I just stared into the translucent smoke that disappeared into the breeze. It made me sad to think about how quickly something could disappear and no one would blink an eye, that people, even the people who created something, gave no care as to what happened to it or what was going to happen to it. It was a truly grotesque thing. It made life, in general, seem rather vague. The ending we do not know, the beginning only became somewhat clear a couple of years ago and the middle, well its unexpected for everyone.

When I snapped out of it, the fire was still there.

I stared deep into the fire and felt it breathe its last breath. A final deliverance as its last breath feathered into an array of burgundy particles into the now brightly lit periwinkle sky. A strong contrast as the sparks flew up and the fire was now dead. We all got up to restart the fire but everything we did didn’t work: a paper plate fan, lighter fluid, more wood, less wood, more air, less air. All we saw was smoke. All we cared for was a fire but we didn’t understand the simple idea that what we wanted couldn’t be given to us.