The Mystery of Fire
Fire tends to have a fascinating effect on the one who beholds it. Its flickering shape sends multiples of shadows dancing and quivering about, and somehow, when held in the captivity of a glass chimney, the tri-colored element of old generates a strange calm feeling in the room it is in.
Perhaps fire has a much larger mystifying impact on the young child than it does on the grownup.
I remember sitting in my little backyard pup tent, with a candle burning near the entrance. Life was just going into its second decade, and my mind was yet uncluttered by the cares of adolescence: and uncluttered by scientific explanations to combustion processes.
The candle tended to set the mood, casting animated shadows into the tent’s interior, and, at times, mysteriously sputtering. Its dim flickering light was not bright enough to dominate the scene, but it drove the darkness away far enough to leave a small sense of security at the tiny campsite.
It was almost impossible to leave the candle flame alone – I would poke objects into it, and blow it out just so that I could light it again.
The Psyche of Fire
I often had a hibachi burning close by, fueled by charcoal, and I tended to have an overly large supply of matches and paper caps on hand: I would toss the matches and paper caps freely into the hibachi, listening for the transient reports of hisses and soft, muffled pops that they emitted while burning. The matches would flare up and burn for a while, and the paper caps would throw off sparks as they softly “exploded”. Somehow, the sights and sounds reminded me of New Year’s Eve, and I enjoyed the smell of the smoke as it filled the air during these little “fireworks displays”.
By throwing lighted matches into the air, I was able to imitate meteors, and would watch them trace out their arched trajectories through the evening air before fading out and landing in the cool grass. When I got bored with lighting solitary matches, it was no problem to burn them by the book. I used take the cover off of the book of matches, and then touch a glowing mosquito punk to one end of the heads of the matches, and throw them into the air, imagining that I was witnessing a blazing fireball falling through the night sky. Sometimes, I would get a bunch of cement bricks and lay them on the ground to form a sort of platform, and then line up many such books of matches to form a long row on the platform. Then I would ignite the leading end of the row of matches, and watch as the flame marched and hissed its way along the heads of the matches, domino style. It sort of reminded me of watching a string of firecrackers burn.
Towering Enigma
As I began to enter into adolescence, these backyard “camping trips” were also accompanied by the sounds of rock and roll music, coming from a small radio. Sometimes I would lay in the tent and listen to the music, and at other times, when the weather was hot, I would spread something out on the grass in front of the tent, and lie down with the radio playing next to my ear, and watch as the clouds drifted past the stars above. I would often have a couple of kerosine lanterns burning nearby, casting their orange-toned light on the nearby surroundings; I had acquired a small collection of them through the years. The twinkling stars, the flickering flames of the lanterns, and the incessantly flowing music of the radio made for a strangely interesting mood on those warm summer evenings of long ago.
I look back at those times in my youth with a special fondness; I guess as one grows older, some of the mysteries of life are eventually explained away by rational scientific explanations, and are overtaken by more practical concerns of safety and utility. Still, whenever I do see a solitary candle flickering in the dark, I get a hint of the feeling of mystery that used to come over me as a youth gazing into the flame.
