Keeper of the Fire

You can listen to an audio version of this story here.

Out of the five natural elements: water, wind, fire, earth and ether,
fire is the only one that can be created and extinguished by the hand of a human.

Most would say the air was full of grief and sorrow.
To the boy, it seemed like it was spilling over with possibility, even though the smoke made his vision blurry.
He approached the tree slowly and gently touched its fissured bark. His fingers blackened by the ashes of what were once layers of living wood. He traced the path of the scars and creases left by the fire...up, up, up, like a road leading to something important.
"Are you afraid?" Fire asked.
"No" the boy answered.
"Most people see me, and all they notice is loss and destruction. What is it that you see?"
"I see a tree strengthened by adversity, made lighter by the burned layers that it no longer needed. I see soil fertilized by ashes. I see freedom and transformation."

And so it was in that moment, for the first time since fire could remember, that he told the boy the truth:
He had spent his entire existence looking for a way to live within the humans, find a way into their soul where he could no longer be extinguished. But he could never stay.
"Why not? " asked the boy.
Because...most people are seduced by my power. some depend on me for warmth and comfort. Others are forsaken by fear.

I cannot stay where I am not free."
"It is comfort that scares me. I would rather be uncomfortable and changing than comfortable and oblivious" said the boy.
And in this story,
the truest story there ever was,
the boy asked: "When you look at me, what is it that you see?"
"I see home" Fire said. "I see me"
And so the boy became the keeper of the Fire.
The kind of Fire that carries retrospect forward. The kind of Fire that transforms.
The boy made Fire his offering and Fire made him his apprentice.

They gave each other purpose, and they kept each other alive.

For Diego Leyva and Latente.
Thank you for letting me go through the fire with you. I too, can now see the stars.