"Matches": a sneak peek, the forward
There are over 78 wildfires on this planet every year. Over 3,000,000 trees are burned down, and approximately 5,000,000 or so animals perish in the rubbish from these massive and unstoppable disasters. The causes may span from a negligently tossed cigarette to sparks elicited from rockfalls, but one fact remains a common thread in whatever the cause may be: a debilitating amount of damage is done. The consequences are frighteningly similar across the board. Much landscape and living creatures are harmed for no apparent reason aside from mindless, natural destruction. Once a wildfire is spurred, there is no stopping it. The alleged naturalness of it does not pardon the havoc wreaked.
It scathes whatever dares struts in its roaring and callous path of destruction and annihilates whatever quivers close enough to it. It whirls and seethes to its heart’s content until that hour comes when it is stupendously exasperated and the flames seep into the soiled ground and fall into a deep slumber. It does not possess a conscience and thus, cannot feel what chaos has stemmed from its actions, and what disarray became the outcome of such a warpath. It merely flurries about like a raging tycoon, as ireful as the sea is vast. Inexplicable fury guides these flames into senseless demolition. It’s a massacre that not a soul bats an eye to, it is warranted, commonplace many would say. In a warped, disturbing way, it is condoned by the living creatures of the Earth. Very few do anything to diminish the effects, let alone pay it any mind. As for wishing thinking, even fewer strive to put a grinding halt to it all. Much too often there is not even a hint of resistance.
Some fires, once they are ignited and are set ablaze, are so stifling and overpowering that they bleed you dry in each nook and cranny of your veins and arteries that lie placidly beneath your flesh. They take nearly everything out of you. They drain you of all vigor, vim, and perseverance. They are so suffocating that it takes the fight of a pack of venomous, bloodthirsty wolves in order to grit your teeth and to fucking duel.
Once something spirals out of control, despite its humble beginnings as a non-threatening, definitive entity, potential eradication seems only inevitable once it starts growing, spreading and infesting itself like bacteria within countless beings living and non-living. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, something so meager and seemingly trivial, something no more aggravating than an itch on the neck can grow into such a toxic, entrenched, glaring and rapidly widening rash.
When one’s antipathy reaches a certain breaking point; more specifically, a point where it wafts right under the noses of very skeptical people who suspect something unusual is occurring, that is when things get very ugly.
Like clockwork, wildfires are prompted like a bullet penetrating flesh when the trigger is pulled. Earth goes on hiatus, and then at the most unforeseen, startling time catastrophe strikes like lightning from the heavens. Antagonistic fire surges across terrains, fields, woodlands like a livid, ravenous lioness seeking prey.
In our very own woodland if we are not cautious and mindful, that burning Marlboro could get wedged underneath the soles of our shoes, but that is not the most threatening component to this twisted, unsettling enigma. If we are not conscientious and meticulous enough we could even run the risk of stumbling upon that perilous piece of the puzzle that ignited the colossal inferno that sunk its rabid fangs into the most undeserving.
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