Free Red Lightning by Laura Pritchett Page A

the bananas. Ointments and tortillas and pillows. And that girl, her fingers always roaming over her mother, and after the initial recovery of drowsy sleep, always chattering, asking me questions, translating for her mom in solid English interspersed with awkward sentences.
    That was five years ago. Then something else happened, and that’s the last moment I remember of my old self, the one that was seamless, the one who was just me, just Tess, united. That’s when I began to hear a voice speaking to me. A voice that spoke to me of forgiveness and redemption. It wasn’t my voice, exactly. It wasn’t anyone else’s voice, either. It was the broken voice of the universe, and I was finally sunk enough to tune in and listen.
    *
    From the kitchen window, I see that the sun has sunk to its low -down setting position, and the sky lights up in one last fling of red-orange glow. I shake my head to let the memory go, then I slam my palm on the counter to make my brain listen. I cradle my stinging palm in my other hand and then turn the radio dial again until I get the crackly NPR station, which has finally decided to air the news. Wildfire, as per usual: Type I fire. White Wolf Fire. Trailers, communication units, hotshot crews, heli-tankers. Wild-urban land interface. The fire is burning a little bit of everything, but not all of anything. The burn line goes up and down canyons, through houses and around houses . Always reported with such surprise, though Colorado has been burning for years now. I’ve been through the remains of enough of them to cease being surprised. The burned skeletons of old trees. The emerald green grasses of spring. The baby aspen trees poking up through charred soil. The waves and waves of blackened trees in the far distance.
    Ed crosses my line of sight. He’s moving from one shed to another with large white buckets in his hands. Feeding the cows or chickens or donkeys, I suppose. A bit later, he moves again, carrying white boxes into an outbuilding, and although I think they are bee boxes, he’s not even wearing one of those goofy bee suits.
    We can’t figure out where the fire line is, because it’s everywhere. Perimeter crews. One homeowner missing .
    I push jars around in the cupboard. Wheat germ and jars of homemade rosehip tea and homemade pickles. Surely, some alcohol around here somewhere! Finally, behind the bag of coffee in a cupboard, I find a bottle of Seagram’s 7, full up to the neck. What a pretty color, both in the bottle and as it faucets down into a coffeecup. What a pretty smell. What a pretty taste.
    All residents encouraged to evacuate. It’s the most difficult conditions here. Leave your homes. Winds are changing direction .
    Ed appears again, water buckets now hanging from his arms.Ringo follows in a roundabout way, guided into figure eights and in crisscross patterns by his sniffing nose—imagine people crossing the desert like that. They’d die before they got a half mile. He pounces on some imaginary mouse, runs in happy circles.
    Immigrants not located. We now believe that an immigrant started the fire, as a signal fire . (Huh. Stupid, stupid. I wonder whose run that was.)
    Ed has stopped midway and is glancing toward me, at the window, and then toward the mountains, as if he, too, is considering the source of the smoke. He shakes his head to himself.
    â€œIs that the fire we smell?” Amber is suddenly behind me, leaning against the wall.
    â€œYes, I think so.” I put my coffee cup on the counter, though I can see she’s noticed it. I turn my attention back to cutting the gnarled and curved carrots.
    â€œIt sounds bad.” Amber walks into the kitchen and leans against the fridge. “Remember that about a month ago, there were four different fires going? I’m glad we don’t live in the mountains after all. I used to want to live there. But not now.”
    â€œYes. I heard about those. It’s