CR. . . A . . .A . . . C . . . K! ! ! Lights flicker, then all is black in the house. All of a sudden Boyd, the 300 year old Douglas Fir, crashes down. Once 80 feet tall, he breaks at the base of his rotted trunk. Slipping down the hillside, fiercely ripping through a madrone and an oak tree on his way. My eyes are pulled to the window. Boyd hits the power lines, sending sparks into the majestic moon-filled sky. Blue electric flashes mix with green, brightening the sky. Smoke rises from the scene of this crime. A soft, gray puff here and there. I am alone. In the dark. No cell phone service. No one to hear a call for help. No time to think. All I can do is run, run far away or stay and try to help. Danger lurks on both sides. If I leave a fire can sizzle across the valley, melting everything in its path. If I stay, my efforts to stop a fire risks my life.

I choose to run. I leap out of the house, desperate to reach the road a half a mile away in hope of help there. I sprint, slipping down the rocky hillside. A jagged rock trips me, slicing my knee as I fall to the hard dirt. Warm blood streams down my leg. I feel its wetness. I can’t feel the pain. I will save the valley and myself. I have no time to think of anything else. Ahead I see the road. It feels close, yet also too far away.

I smell smoke in the air. A smell that I used to love, now it smells like death and fear. The smell of innocent trees burning, dying a slow painful death as they shrivel and blacken. Quivering squirrels and rabbits leaping and darting to avoid their flaming death. Insects flying into their last moment of life, sheer wings melting. Night of judgment. Night when everything changes in a blink of an eye. I am sprinting faster now, the wind rushing through my hair, the moon blazing down on me, showing me the way. There the road is. I am finally there . . . . BAM!!