Bonfire

The bonfire, a pep rally before The Game, occurs every year, a tradition of Woodberry Forest. Like the last two years I have participated, it was a 20 feet tall cone of firewood, with tinder and sticks ready to be lit. 

I stood in the bathroom with a few others, face painting myself for the first time. I was not planning to do it, and had not done it in the past two years at Woodberry. But under the encouragement of the people around me, I did put on face paint, and even wore an orange shirt and black pants—Woodberry colors.

Many things in life come unexpected, some good, some bad. But these incidents always bring something special to one’s life, if just for a moment. 

One night, my mother and I were traveling in the city of Shanghai when we came across a place where people sold adopted stray and street dogs. Interested, we walked over and checked them out. Though not a great number, the dogs were of many varieties, some smaller, some larger, and of an unclear and mixed breed, as stray dogs usually are. 

My mom and I were attracted to a medium-sized yellow dog named TT with a small scar down its side. It was friendly, and could understand basic directions such as “sit” or “lie down.” Its body was warm, and its tail looked like the bristles of a broom sticking up from its rear. 

My mother inquired with the ‘seller’ about the dog’s information and training while I played with the dog more. We were not planning on buying a dog that day, but under the dog’s friendliness and our own sympathies, we did. 

Over the years, I rode with my mother to school with TT running behind. I took him on trips to my grandparents’. I went on expeditions to a small forest with him. I petted, fed, and walked him. I played with him on our small lawn. 

A few years later, I was going to go to school in San Diego. My mother was moving with me to the US, and my father had to travel often for work. So we left TT with my grandparents in Yangzhou. The night after we had left, my grandparents called us telling us that TT had gone missing, and had not returned. 

It came as a surprise, and my parents and I maintained a state of hope until TT still had not returned the next day. My grandparents contacted the Property Management, but found that the security cameras were not functional, leaving us no way to track where the dog had gone. Our best guess was that someone had taken him (my grandparents reined him outside their apartment) and just left. 

It was my first experience of grief, knowing I had lost something, no, someone, that would never be returned. 

—————

The fire was lit by more than four hundred torches, with the students lining up with lit torches, then each throwing his torch into the fire as it grew. We then all gathered beneath a platform where the cheerleaders began their pep rally. 

I was not focused on the pep rally, but on the burning fire: it was tall, and it was a demon, burning up the chilly night, letting loose in the sky a snow of flaming ashes and glowing twigs.  

At one point, the cheerleaders burned an Episcopal High School (our rival school) flag. It was during this burning that the fire fell suddenly. I watched as the once fiery, tall, and magnificent fire tilted and fell over in a few seconds into a heap of flame, though still large and hot, retained none of its previous majesty and power.

There is a moment when something first falls, when it succumbs to the weight and gravity. The fire now lay on the floor, still crackling and fizzling, but losing its warmth moment by moment. The fire flickered, attempting to retrieve the logs that once held up its triumph and pride, only to find that it was crushed underneath, bent and broken. The bonfire ended soon after, and the next day, the fire was gone, and only remnants of it stayed in the burn twigs, gray ashes, and people’s minds.