WE GARDEN WITH FIRE

Amar stared at me with that confident smirk tailor-made for his face but not mine, despite our identical features. I once joked it was due to the overhang of his dreads; it hid portions of a sizable forehead my short twists did not. It was one of the few teases my brother could not retort.

This was no time for quips.

His left eye glowed, and my right eye sparked in kind, answering the silent call of our bond. His heat met my skin — dark as aged wood — then became my own.

Make fire, Father said.

He never says that.

He tells us to control our emotions, lest they consume us.

He reminds us our gift is only a gift if we learn when and where to apply it.

He chastises us when he replaces scorched linen or fixes singed floorboards. He reprimands us when our flame becomes a child’s plaything, a baseball game amongst glass houses. How you use your blessing is just as important as the blessing itself, he says. He teaches us to quell the smoke that pulses from our mouths when we bite our tongues, lest our words ignite powder kegs too immense for us. Still, our energy makes standing still impossible.

Like pyres caged by fireplaces.

Amar and I can’t fight like brothers would. But why would we? We want the same things. We share an identical burden. Father says it will get lighter with age. We are young, time will teach us more than he ever could. He is right, but it does not help us now. So trouble became our outlet.

We started with discarded baskets, then frayed clothing waving on drying lines. We weren’t careful enough. The crops burned, a stray flame too wild and too free. The village suffered. They did not know the reason for the misfortune, but our father did. We feared his anger. 

Instead, he beckoned us to follow him. 

We walked further and further from our small hamlet, past portions of the forest familiar to us. Beyond bushes we knew names of. Stories of Father’s struggles mastering control of his water gave melody to the journey, in perfect rhythm to the bass drum of our footsteps. He told us of a time when our homestead rejoiced at the first rains following a dry spell. We laughed as he recounted the time he tried to emulate the rainfall the next summer, only to nearly flood the village with a storm he caused. 

Power without a strong guide breeds chaos, he said. A gift guided by integrity plants seeds that blossom; one guided by selfishness destroys the garden. 

My brother joked he was not much of a gardener, but we both received the lesson. 

He brought us to the top of a hillside made of dirt and gravel, overseen only by the stars.  Two heaps of cut wood bound by sinew taunted us, their construction as identical as my sibling and me. 

Can you burn these? Father asked. We laughed. He smiled. 

His eyes glowed blue. The heavens boomed and drew close, its rain clouds answering his request for dew. 

Our laughter died in agape mouths.

Amar groaned. The wood is too wet, he complained. It would be too difficult. I cringed. Father plucked him on his forehead. His dreads did not soften the sting. 

Yes, it will be hard, Father said. But hard is not impossible. 

I asked if we would be punished for making fire. He shook his head. 

You will restore what was lost, he said. But we would not be disciplined here. This is  where you practice. 

He told us of communities beyond our home, not only of people who are kind and good,  but of those who would mean us harm. How his father before him protected the village when  such people came to steal our food. How we should always be strong enough to protect those we  love. 

For everything, there is a time and a place. 

This is the day we discovered purpose outside ourselves. 

That is the day we became gardeners. 

We burned the heaps daily. Father pushed us. He did not allow us to quit. Under that  pressure, we were refined and strengthened. 

When the enemies came to destroy our village — with skin like ours but eyes that did not  see kin in us — we were ready. 

This was the time and place Father prepared us for. 

We fight using the fire in our veins. 

Our flames strong enough to defend our home.