“Clear!”

I squeezed the bottle of charcoal fluid into the already considerably sized bonfire. A plume of flame shot upward, tracing the splintered wooden edge of the Vista’s overlook platform. Shuttles sprung backward, loosing a high-pitched squeal that served well for singing AFI but significantly damaged his masculinity’s reputation when not. Robin laughed from behind me, joining the twin chorus of lesbians standing thirty feet up, atop the platform. The lesbians had arrived earlier, two stout college girls come to enjoy the scenic, verdant pitch-blackness.

“Did you hear that?” Robin said, a smirk creeping across her face, “They said they like when you squirt it.”

“They always do.” I looked up at them, flashed the winning smile, and hit the flame with another burst of fluid. It crackled and roared.

“Nikolayevich,” Shuttles said, “I’m gonna go up there, I wanna see what it looks like.”

“You go up there!” Robin ordered, now at my left. “You give those bitches some lovin’!”

“Robin, I can’-”

“Mark, you have to start talking to girls. That aren’t your girlfriend.”

“But, it’s just when I’m with her I feel this connection-”

“Shuts, man, I’m’a hit this fire again,” I said. “I don’t know how long I can hold it.”

Inexplicably, nobody said, “That’s what she said”. Shuttles climbed the stairs one at a time, made some awkward smalltalk with the lesbians, and hung his head over the side. I hit the fire again.

“Holy shit, man!” he hollered down at me, “That was awesome! I wish you could see this!”

“I can.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Robin smirking and shaking her head. The lesbians broke into laughter again as I took the stairs two at a time, stumbling like an idiot due to lack of light, and joined them at the edge.

“Hey,” one said.

“What up?” I nodded, then leaned and maintained a three-second stream into the embers. A fireball the size of a refrigerator shot past us. The lesbians howled and cheered. Shuttles whimpered slightly.

The conversation suddenly turned to My New Haircut, which, in my ever humble opinion, is becoming played out. I lit a Marlboro Menthol and decided to go tend the fire, not particularly wanting to hear the word ‘Jagerbombs’ chanted like a goddamn Buddhist mantra.

The lighter fluid had handled its business well; the fire now roared to a respectable five-foot height, managing at least ten feet in length. It coiled through the rock crevice like a burning serpent, casting impossible shadows against the undergrowth. I remembered seeing slugs on the wood before we lit it, and mentally genuflected.

“Yeah, I grunt when I get my swell on at the gym.”

I looked up at a burly lesbian in a cowboy hat demonstrating her gym-swelling prowess.

“’cuz everyone should know how jacked and tan I am.”

I looked back into the fire, taking a long drag of my cigarette.

It had been a long day. Long, stressful, and incredibly depressing. Robin had lost an ex-boyfriend the day before in a car crash. They had been close. She was still inconsolable, which I myself had difficulty coping with. She is one of the strongest girls I’ve ever known. Detached, slightly spacey, almost utterly devoid of feeling. For the most part, the girl was an emotional blank slate.  This was the first time I had ever seen her cry, and I hope the last. Shuttles had driven us around route 307 looking for where the car had crashed, and making unhelpful and half-thought out comments.

“How are we going to find this place?” I’d asked.

“We’ve got to look for a landmark,” Robin had said.

“Maybe there’ll be a tail light or something,” Shuttles had offered.

You could’ve heard a pin drop.

I was wrestling with difficulties of my own, of course, but writing is release through escapism and I can see no good coming from listing them here. Between the two of us, Robin and I managed to produce a level of listless existentialist brooding that bordered on unprecedented.

The fire had been my idea. It beat the hell out of sitting in the Wendy’s parking lot and moping. I put down the lighter fluid and smoked my cigarette, staring into the flames.

The others drifted down to join me, and had brought their conversation with them. They stayed under the platform, a good ten yards away. I glanced at them, then back at the bonfire.

Suddenly, everything exploded.

Blinding heat blew against my skin as fire burst in all directions. Flaming chunks debris smashed my face and shirt. I leapt backward, choking out the words “Holy shit”, as a red-hot nail whizzed past my head. Embers drifted down like burning snow. Pieces of charred wood and metal shrapnel flew in all directions, encompassed my entire range of sight. The coals had somehow sprung from the bottom of the pit and lay strewn in the grass for a six or seven feet.

The lesbians gasped. Shuttles managed half a “Whoa.”

I heard Robin shriek, “Oh my GOD!” She sprinted across the grass and grabbed at me randomly, digging long turquoise fingernails into my arms, my shoulders, my stomach, my ribs, my neck, making sure I was still alive, still whole. She was saying something, very quickly and shrilly. After the fourth time I realized it was “Are you okay?”

I stood, smoldering, my clothes burnt, my face covered in soot, my back flexed defensively, head down, feet planted. I looked up. Robin’s eyes searched my face. The others stayed back, away from the ruins of the fire, staring in awe.

Smoke billowed up from my chest, cloaking my smile.

It was the most beautiful moment of my life.