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and there went the magic …

when your world is small, because you like small worlds, and you create small worlds, you run the risk of catching lightening in a bottle and then misplacing the bottle. or loaning it to someone who moves away before they can give you back your lightening. or the lightening just gets tired of flashing away in that little bottle, isolated from its chance to impact real danger on a golfer or a bell tower or a slow shuttered composition in thirds. the lightening just … burns out.

the field was all burned up this morning. it was fine yesterday, when i took lefty on his birthday walk, but today, when i took lefty on his day after his birthday walk, it was all burned up. well, not all of it. just a patch. but when i saw it, i immediately worried that the lovely old deaf man with the NRA stickers on his van would think i did it. that i started the fire. after all, i’m the only one he ever sees going into the field, when he yells at me across the driveway, ‘hey kevin, i’m sure glad you and your little dog love that field so much,’ and i say, ‘we sure do!’ leaving off the detail of his name because i forgot it. ‘i don’t even smoke!’ is what i rehearsed that i would say if he asked me about the burned up field, because it’s true, and he would believe me, and i would be off the hook and not in trouble cause i hate the hook and, well, i’m pretty much all talk and no trouble …

but all i would really need to tell him is that i don’t start fires. not any real ones, anyway. i’ve struck a match or two, i suppose. even let a few of them burn down to my fingers and give me that little hot pinch. but i’ve never felt a fire that had to consume beyond its borders. never felt the appetite of a life out of control. never felt loss or ash or sacrifice. nah, all i’d need to say is that i’m not the type who starts fires. i put them out. and i probably wouldn’t even need to tell him that. he could surely read it on my face. and i heard the deaf have some sort of extra-sensory powers in this regard, but, really, you’d have to be blind to not see it …

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