Kindling

Idir asks me to grab some of the wood he’s stored as kindling for a bonfire in his garden shed. I tiptoe over evidence of his gardening efforts: broken slates, randomly chipped bricks, fresh Homebase pot plants awaiting flowers. I grab them just as I hear the strike of a match and see the world transform into a red blaze in a flash for a split second via my peripherals.

Returning to his side, I find him adding to the bonfire, carefully. Crouching at times. Leaning too close and moving swiftly out of harms reach as the fire spits at him. His focus is razor sharp but his eyes are someplace else, just beyond the flames

“You OK, babe?”

He stands and briefly surveys his work before turning to me. “Never better,” he says, softly.

The sunset retreats and moves behind the attic of his house. The flames taunt him: it catches parts of his construction and ignores others. It goes out completely in one section. He walks and quickly grabs a fistful of the tall grass growing through the broken fence of his neighbours’ yard. Jabs just enough at the flame for it to catch before releasing it gently. A drunken flashback: his hands, lightning fast, squeeze parts of me, insistent, determined; gentle.

The bonfire screams yellow and flourishes. Idir takes my hand and doesn’t say anything. He watches the fire. I watch him. Just in case he sets alight, too. I think I know how to put him out.