The Event by Gene Frechin     One   I woke up with a panicked feeling, for some reason I thought my toes were on fire and after assuring myself that they weren’t, I noticed that the smell of smoke was heavy in the air.  Still half asleep, I again looked down at my feet wondering how they could be burning without hurting when the rest of my brain kicked in and I realized that there must be a fire somewhere close.  It was still dark out and glancing at the clock let me know it was still a good half an hour before the sun would be up.  It was difficult to orient myself up here, I had only been at my buddy’s cabin for two days and I was still not familiar with all the nuances associated with this place.  Being slightly disoriented, and not yet totally awake, I almost fell over trying to put my pants on and only saved myself by hopping back to the bed, half falling/half sitting on it. Once I finished dressing, I opened the front door and looked out.  I could see where the sun was working its way up, part of the darkness I was looking at was lighter than the rest, but what I noticed the most was the smell of smoke.  From my vantage point I couldn’t see anything burning, but I knew the fire-or fires-were fairly close, and that worried me.  I headed around the cabin and saw the valley behind it lit up with fires burning everywhere!  A healthy dose of dread settled in my stomach as panic started to worm its way in and I was rooted to the spot.  The desire to run was only slightly overshadowed by the morbid fascination I had at watching the ongoing destruction raging in the valley.  How long I stood watching, I don’t know, but when I finally decided to move, the sun had already topped the trees behind me and was working its way into the valley beyond. I had no clue what happened but the more I could see and look around the surrounding valleys, the more I wondered why I saw a bunch of smoke columns rising up from the valley floors.  I could see each separate column rise and watched how they hung lazily in the air, pushed gently by the breeze that was blowing lightly in my face.  The morning was fairly overcast so, the contrast between the dark clouds lying low in the valley and the different shades of gray floating over the low sky made the view eerily unrealistic, as if this were somehow staged for my benefit.  I made the assumption that what I was seeing were controlled burns, it was the right time of year for them, but the longer I looked the more I was beginning to doubt it.  There were too many throughout the valley to be of a coordinated manner, not that I really knew about these kind of things, but I thought it more than coincidental that there were as many as there were.  I stood looking for a couple of more minutes debating what to do as the smoke got heavier and thicker.  I found myself coughing a couple of times and that settled it for me.  As much as I didn’t want to leave (hell, I was just starting to enjoy the relaxation of being out here) I didn’t want to risk staying and having that fire greet me anytime soon.  Maybe I was being a little paranoid but I hurried to the cabin and packed all my stuff up-the smoke was getting really thick now-and headed off down the tiny dirt road feeling very crappy about the whole thing.  I half expected to hear some emergency vehicles responding to the fires (sound travels a tremendous distance up here) but I didn’t hear a thing and that blew my theory about not being controlled fires.  The further I drove away from the cabin the more foolish I felt.  What if they were just controlled burns and I was overreacting? Since I was already on the road I continued on into town for some supplies and figured I could decide from the reaction of the townsfolk whether to head back up to the cabin afterward.  I flicked on the radio hoping to hear some news about it but all I got was static.  That startled me for a second but I wasn’t paying much attention to anything else but my ever-growing feeling of foolishness, and I let that go by without much thought.  In a short time I started laughing silently at myself and drove on with an uneasy smile on my face.   Just after I turned on to what passed for a drivable dirt road, the skies opened up and it started pouring.  It was raining so hard that my wipers had trouble keeping up with it and the road starting getting mushy.  At least all this rain might help put out some of the hot spots if indeed they were uncontrolled fires, and the last vestiges of concern were swept away with the oncoming rain.  I slowed down and drove more cautiously and about half an hour later I was on pavement.  I knew I was about twenty minutes away from a little one-horse town where I could stock up with some supplies and talk to the townsfolk about the fires. As I neared the turn, my thoughts a million miles away, I was shocked when I came into town and saw that the whole damn place was leveled!  There wasn’t a building left standing anywhere, everything was totally burnt to the ground!  My level of panic shot up quickly a few notches as I eased past what was left of the town and then I had to stop.  How the hell could a town burn to the ground, even a small one like this, and-rain or no rain-not start a fire in the woods?  I slowly backed up and stopped in the middle of the road, engine idling, looking around in disbelief at the trees, some of them right next to the building that had burned down.  There was not a spot on them and nothing was even scorched, let alone showing any sign that there had been any heat near it.  I headed out of town with a feeling of amazement that only worsened the further I went.  Obviously, I wasn’t heading back to the cabin. Two days!  Two goddamned days and I was on the move again!  When would this shit end?  I had spent the last six weeks trying to find someplace where I could get away from the pain and try to heal.  This had seemed like the best chance and now it was gone, left by the wayside by some corny freakin’ fire.  There was no way I was going to go back up to the cabin, my luck the damn thing was already on fire and I would just get stuck up there to watch it burn. How much more could one man take?  Seems like every time I turn around something else gets screwed up.  Let’s see, in the last six months I’ve lost my dog of seventeen years, an old college buddy to a drunk driver, my only aunt, my car was stolen-an old 68 Firebird muscle car I’d had for twenty years that I treasured, and most recently my job and my wife.  Shit, this sucks!  No way man, I’m not taking a trip down memory lane, at least not this one. What the hell was I supposed to do now?  I wore out my welcome with friends and family moping around for so damn long that they very "politely" asked me to move on.  I can’t really blame any of them because I’ve been an ass for the last month and a half lazing around in my self-induced state of indifference, heading off on my downward emotional spiral to an existence of hopelessness.  I wasn’t fooling anybody, I was so depressed about my life that I stopped caring, and it was only with great reluctance that I finally took the advice of a very close friend and headed up to the mountains to find my peace.  Once the suggestion was made, I began to look forward to it, realized what an ass I had been and here I was two days later on the road again.  I wasn’t quitting that easily; while I was still up here I was going to drive around and let the beauty of the place try to soak in.  I headed back out of town to see what was up ahead.       I followed every road sign I could that said there was another town on down the road, but I was met by the same silence and emptiness of all the others.  I even tried taking side roads off the beaten path with the same results.  Virtually every town I went to was totally razed to the ground by a fire that strangely enough didn’t set any of the surrounding countryside on fire.  I found myself driving down roads and passing towns that became a blur as my mind numbed itself to what it was seeing.  It was unbelievingly surreal looking at the forests, so pristine in their appearance, and seeing the smoldering ruins of a town set against that kind of a backdrop.  It was as if nature was denying our ability to make a lasting mark and the pine trees stood as silent guards, ever vigilant, over their world.  The closer I got to Lake Tahoe, the more my fear level rose and pretty soon my heart was pounding in my chest.  Every town on the way was like the one before it, and the one before that, and if not for the intermittent rain I probably wouldn’t be able to see much at all through all the smoke that was still rising in most places.  There was one little town that I stopped at that miraculously still had a serviceable looking payphone in it, but when I picked up the receiver, it was dead.  I was getting so edgy that I was having trouble keeping on the road and a couple of times almost ended up over the side of a ravine.  I wondered if I was subconsciously trying to head there in an attempt to give in to what I was feeling.  My whole body wanted to shut down and not have to deal with this and it took extreme effort on my part just to keep my focus on driving the car. I pulled over to the side of the road and was immediately drenched from another squall when I got out, but it acted as I had hoped it would, it woke me up, only I felt as if awakening from a dream yet still being inside the dream.  It was an odd feeling and I began to doubt my sensibility and wondered if I was losing it.  Looking up at the sky with the raindrops streaking down upon my face, I let them wash over me as I tried to make sense of what was happening.  I had no answers, but the water pouring over my body chilled me back to action and I hopped into the car.  Driving now with a purpose, I headed on to Tahoe and hoped things would be better in Tahoe City where Bill lived.  The rain had cleared some of the smoke, but when I hit Truckee, it was like a blanket had been dropped across the sky.  What little I could see of the town was no different than all the others and my hopes finally hit rock bottom, I didn’t think anything would be left anywhere up here.  Resolutely, I headed slowly towards Tahoe City with very little doubt that it would be in the same shape as everything else I had seen. I ended up parked in front of what used to be Bill’s house and just stared at what was left, a few smoldering pieces of wood, a half toppled chimney, two burned out cars in what used to be the garage, and three goddamn trees in his front yard that hadn’t been touched!  Part of me wanted to get out and walk around his place, but the biggest part of me just wanted to scream, loud and long.  I did neither.  Instead I just stayed in the car, disassociated from myself, time had no real meaning for me then as I tried to digest what I was seeing.  Nothing felt real, I didn’t feel real, this car wasn’t real, nothing was real!    What the hell happened?  Were we at war or something?  Yeah, someone developed a real "smart" bomb, only destroyed man-made objects and the people around them. I looked out over the lake-at least as far as I could see because the smoke blocked my view and the sun was starting to go down-and wondered how it could sit there so serenely like nothing had ever happened.  It looked so peaceful and untouched by everything going on around it that I was insidiously drawn to it, so much so that I actually got out of my car and started walking toward it.  Standing on the bank overlooking the shore, I picked up a couple of rocks and flung them as far as I could.  The twinge in my shoulder stopped that real quick, but I was feeling so dejected that I just stood there in a mind-numbing trance before I finally sank down to the ground long minutes later.          My uncontrollable shivering finally brought me back to some semblance of life, and I reluctantly got up and headed back to my car.  I warmed the car up and turned on the heater wondering just what the hell I was going to do now.  I began to drive aimlessly around the town and finally picked a road and headed out.  Didn’t have a clue where I was going, nor did I care.  In the back of my mind I kept thinking I should get back home as soon as I could, but I couldn’t make myself head down, most of the fires I had seen from Bill’s cabin were in that direction, and to be honest, at this point, I didn’t really give a damn about anything anymore. I used to know quite a few people who lived in this area; friends, a family member or two and some business associates.  It really hurt to drive around and look at what had happened knowing that you’ll never see them again.  Their faces kept popping up in my mind like specters and each time they did, I felt more and more isolated.  It really made me question what the heck I was still doing alive, and just how deeply alone I felt.  Driving mile after mile and seeing nothing, no people, no animals, hell I didn’t even see any bugs, was beginning to take its toll on me.  I knew I was awake but kept hoping that I would wake up anyway and find myself again surrounded by the people I knew and loved.  There was an unreal quality to all of this, and as each day went by I had difficulty accepting that what I was seeing was real. Every day that passed left me feeling more and more like I was on the verge of emotional shutdown and I fought a constant battle not to give in to the sense of desperation I was feeling. I drove through some of the most beautiful scenery in this country but received no solace from its beauty.  This was why I had come up here in the first place, to get away and be recharged by the natural beauty that was always so peaceful and energizing to me before, instead I now passed through it with a sense of dread so deep that I began to look differently at the woods that surrounded me.  I was alone in a world with little forgiveness for fools.