Eventually the old fire truck came -- without siren; without flashing lights -- and stood faithfully by, watching to make sure the flames didn't spread to any nearby buildings. Which sobered me into remembering my manuscripts, stored in the highly flammable wooden footlocker upon which I was sitting, looking out my window at the fire.

I had sworn a solemn oath long ago to commit suicide immediately upon learning that anything had happened to my precious manuscripts, before my soul had a chance to be wrenched from me, and my body condemned to live out a life filled with shallows and misery, void of all courage and hope.

Many's the night I jerked from my bed dreaming the cabin was engulfed in flames, shoved the heavy footlocker out the window ahead of me, and dived face-first after it into the cold, wet reality of the grass, only to find that a neighbor's afternoon barbecue coals, now smoldering beneath a late-night blanket of damp ash and dew, had fooled me again. So naturally I began to keep a sharp eye out for every ash that soared up out of the flames, and ferried diabolically across the treetops at me on the early morning breeze, determined to reach my yard -- or God forbid my roof! -- before it died out.

Meanwhile, up on one of the hillsides, somebody had a boom-box with the theme to 2001 turned all the way up. And the profound timpani stomped its way around the cold granite walls of the canyon like a dinosaur, pursued by a warmly appreciative, effervescent giggle from the crowd.

At just the right moment, all the stained glass windows in the church exploded and fell away simultaneously. And all the people in the valley and on the hillsides leapt to their feet, and cheered, and honked their horns, and flashed their lights. Even the fire truck couldn't resist the temptation to whirl its red light, and whoop its old siren like a startled baboon!

After the fire died down, and everyone had straggled back home to get some sleep before time to get up and go to work, I remained in my window meditating upon the Olympic-sized pool of seething coals, drowning like demons beneath the invisible waves of coolness that swept over them out of a pink-and-blue dawning sky. At one point I remember achieving such a state of bliss, I could even make a hound on a distant hill york, just by blinking my eyes.

When I woke after nine with my head still on my hands, I thought the whole thing had been nothing more than another of my vivid fire dreams. Until I smelled the burnt stench wafting through the forest, and knew that it was real.

No leftover barbecue coals ever smelled like that!

I jumped up and splashed my face with cold water to get it going, and hurried over to survey the scene in broad daylight.