On Fire

Long ago humans were afraid of fire. Afraid of the droughts that came and the heat that scorched, and the way forests burned to ashes among the roaring of the red light, and afraid of searing flesh curving easily away from bone. By the Elizabethan era we were still afraid. Of our cooking being the end of us as smoke collected in rooms and we all suffocated, of our chimmneys not working of another family home, burning next to ours. And even today I quake. We have alarms for smoke. We have vents for steam, but the pain of burns is like nothing else.