L.A. Wildfires

The hills, usually a hazy green-gold, were rimmed in a furious orange. The flames were licking the sky, a sort of perverse, angry sunset. It wasn't the usual smog-rose of twilight, the gentle blush of a city’s exhale.. This was different. This was hungry.

I could smell it on the Santa Ana wind, a hot, dry whisper that tasted of ash and something else… something ancient and angry. Like the earth itself was exhaling a sigh of fire. Down below, the ocean glittered, oblivious, a dark, shimmering mirror reflecting the inferno back at itself. a vast, indifferent eye watching the world burn.

Even the bougainvillea, usually so vibrant, seemed to cower, their magenta blossoms dusted with soot. dark tears upon a painted face. 

I remember when I was little, I thought fireflies were tiny stars fallen to earth. Now, these embers floating on the wind, they were like fallen stars too, but dark ones, burning with a terrible, beautiful light.

The air was thick with it, you know? Not just smoke, but this… this energy. Like all the pent-up anxieties of Los Angeles, all the unwritten screenplays and broken hearts, had finally found their way home. The air crackled with unspoken tension, the kind that could destroy a world.

I imagined the coyotes, their eyes glowing like twin embers in the darkness, descending the city streets, nestling in among us. lost souls. The deer, their delicate hooves pounding the scorched earth, fleeing further into the ravaged canyons. 

This was a reminder, I guess, that even in a city of angels, there's always a touch of hell. A reminder that this land, born of fire and earthquake, was a place of wild magic, both beautiful and terrifying.

It was a story being written in flame across the hills, a story of loss and resilience, a story that Los Angeles knew all too well, a story etched into the very soil. And tonight, the story was being told in shades of orange and black, under a sky weeping ash. It was a reminder, really, that Los Angeles is always on the verge of something. On the verge of an earthquake, on the verge of a mudslide, on the verge of spontaneous combustion. 

And one-by-one, our dimmed lights blink back on, beacons flickering in a desolate place, doing what all Angelenos do best… starting all over again.