The perfect moment,

a chunk of time in which

time disappears.

Minutes suspend

leaving us to our solitude

and seconds

feel like eternities.

 

To experience one of these undeniably remarkable moments

last hours, then hours pass, seamlessly and unaccounted for.

In these small chunks of eternity our senses collect fragments,

which we will employ to reminisce.

Reminisce about the moments in which time expelled

and we experienced eternity in a matter of seconds.

My perfect moment reigns as the best memory,

the best night,

of my life…

 

Everyone else vanished into the house,

their complaints of the cold and dark followed.

The cold brushed against us who remained and the dark circled us.

But I found myself with a generation who cared little about these comforts.

 

The fire arose that night for the first time; we built the pit only hours earlier.

This fire which we created reached out to give us all the heat we needed

and raged to spread all the light we desired.

The sound of wood cracking and falling separated us

from the eery oath of silence our surroundings took.

The leaves on the trees froze, as if any sound they made sentenced them to fall from their home.

 

The creek down the hill remained quiet,

as if the sound of water rushing caused the Gods to threatened its prosperity.

The smoke slid up our noses and attempted

to get in our eyes as if it wanted to win a game

of hide-and-go-seek with the flames before us.

Neither the cold nor dark scared us indoors,

the utter silence and rough smoke

smell hardly moved us.

We prepared for the night ahead,

we refused to coward back into the house.

With that said, some missions caused more fear than others.

 

Leaving the fire to rebuild our wood pile deemed a daunting task.

Each of us took our turn with bravery,

at first excited to venture into the dark,

but learning quickly that nature intended differently.

The first thing to dissolve as I wandered from the fire, the warmth;

the cold began to creep up my sleeves leaving goosebumps in its trail.

Next to leave me, the guiding light;

the darkness slowly encased me until all at once my sight vanished.

What little noise the fire provided became indiscernible, and silence,

like darkness, covered me until I forgot that sound existed.

Last to go, the sense of protection bestowed upon me by the fire,

disappeared the further I ventured for wood

to keep it alive.

 

On my return, all of these comforts:

warmth which restored the hairs on my arm to their rightful place laying down;

light which cut away the darkness that hung over me;

cracking and falling wood which screamed out the silence from my mind;

safety of a fire protecting who gave it life to begin with;

came back to me to reward for a job well done.

 

As I sat down from my journey

I glimpsed at my phone,

feeling guilty for disturbing the natural universe with technology.

The time showed nearly four hours passed since last I checked.

When I swore only minutes ago we melted glass in the fire, in reality,

we melted glass hours ago.

I proved to bear a type of luck which allowed me to experience

a perfect moment in which

The hours felt like minutes,

 

Although my weave into and out of a heavenous eternity ended,

I never forgot the serenity which surrounded all-

cold and warmth;

dark and light;

silent and noisy;

the comfort

provided by something as simple as a fire.

 

The reminiscence of memory

made possible by the fragments of reality

sensed and stored in order to remember

and re-live the best night in my life.