The Ember in the Night

In an old rustic bar, the lights glow dim yellow on the smooth wooden tables. The bartender slides a beer, a Samuel Adams, across the countertop. Slapping down five dollars, Arlo takes a long swig of the drink, draining the bottle halfway. Getting up and walking around, he sees his old friend out of college. 

“Hey, Atticus?”

“Hey, Arlo. Long time no see!”

“What are you doing at a bar all alone? Trying to look for some girls?” Arlo says with a wink.

“Not much, work has been stressful, and I thought I would grab a beer before heading back home.”

“Well, you gotta pay the bills. Hey, I know a story that will cheer you up! You remember Old Walter, that guy I introduced to you to at that neighborhood Thanksgiving party a few years back?”

“Yeah, what about him?

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Come on now, we’ve been friends for 7 years! I think you know the answer to that question already,” he responds with a smirk.

“Alright.”

Sitting back down at an empty seat, Arlo gestures for his friend to sit down too. Calling for the bartender to give them two more beers, he tells him to settle in and get comfortable. Excited to share this recent event with somebody, he jumps right in and starts talking.

“Well, you know how I’m Walter’s neighbor?”

“Yeah.” 

“Well, Old Walter has completely lost it now. Did you hear about what I saw him do yesterday? You know that big eucalyptus tree that he had in his yard? Ms. Su, his other neighbor, had been threatening to sue him if he didn’t do something about it since it was starting to grow onto her property, and the roots grew under her fence, making them fall over.”

Just the day before, she had yelled at him the following: “My son is a lawyer now. I told him to go to medical school and become a doctor, but now at least he can help me sue you because your big, ugly tree is now partly on my property. Its roots are scoundrels and thieves! They go under my new fence, making it all sideways and wobbly, and steal water from my tomato plants! You know, my tomato plants won the very prestigious Wicinhoga County contest for 6 consescu-what was that word again? Oh, right- consequatived years, but now thanks to your dreadful tree, the poor plants are all dehy. . .dehydro. . . dehydroated and shriveled up!” It was quite the scene.

“Somehow Old Walter thought of this crazy idea! He bragged about it a couple times a month ago, but I never listened to that lunatic. Basically, he wanted to set the tree on fire.”

“What?”

“He obviously didn’t want to get sued, so he tried destroying it himself. He also wanted to get revenge on his neighbor though. Old Walter sometimes saw me and whispered crazy stuff from across the fence, but I never listened before. Yeah, I was kind of weirded out by him for a few days but totally forgot about it. Apparently, a few days ago, he had some sort of ‘plan’ ready and carried it out. CRAZY! But if you want to know, I’ll tell you.”

Captivated by the story, Atticus eagerly says yes. 

“Here goes… “

“Well, from what I heard, he first cut through the tree and planned it so that it would rain the day he did it.”

Old Walter had cut some of the bark off the eucalyptus tree with an old ax he had found in his garage. The bark was tough, and it had taken many cuts to even get a single piece off. 

“I remember that night. It was dark and the clouds covered the sun. The only source of light was the dim streetlights. 

At that point, the sky had started to darken, threatening to bring inclement weather. Storm clouds were moving in, and thunder could be heard in the distance. 

Old Walter started cutting faster, wanting to finish before the storm came. Once he had finally made a good sized dent in the tree, he doused the jagged splinters with some gasoline and lit it on fire with a match. Throwing the rest of the petrol on the branches, he stood back to admire his handiwork.

“After I saw him cutting at the tree, I went outside to see if I could see more and, lo and behold, I saw him dumping oil all over the tree.”

It was already raining pretty hard, but the fire had already grown and was engulfing the tree. Knowing that the fire was big enough and therefore wouldn’t go out despite the rain, Old Walter decided to go back inside his house and watch over the fire from there instead. The lighting struck frighteningly close, and the rain battered down, pounding on the roof; however, the minute he stepped into his house, being a huge fan of Stephen Colbert’s talk show, he nearly had a heart attack when he realized that he had already missed 10 whole minutes of it, promptly forgetting all about the tree on fire in his yard.

Then, as he was laughing at Colbert’s hilarious impressions, he, and all his neighbors, heard an explosion followed by the noise of glass shattering.

“I saw him suddenly walk back to his house and stayed in there for a while. I was about to go back to mine when I heard a sudden boom and saw a window blown to fragments.”

He ran/stumbled (he was getting old, and his legs were not what they used to be) to the window to see what happened but found that the window was no longer there. It had been reduced to just a few shards of glass still clinging to the window frame while the rest was all over the floor. This is when he realized that a portion of the eucalyptus tree’s trunk had been completely obliterated. He quickly rushed out and saw burnt scar marks all over the tree. Little flames were everywhere, but were quickly extinguished by the pouring rain.

“I actually did some research, and eucalyptus trees can explode during forest fires when their cells are heated to a certain temperature. Apparently the oil that the tree naturally produces is very flammable. I have no idea how he knew that.”

“I saw everything. In the end, police were called about this entire disturbance. Believe it or not, Old Walter blamed it on the lightning!”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, and the police bought it! I mean, I could even smell the gasoline. I have no idea how he convinced them. According to Wikipedia, they can actually explode if they get struck by lightning or if it is extremely cold and the sap freezes, so the Sioux and the Cree call the first moon of the new year the moon of cold-exploding trees, but this guy is a mad genius. So that’s it! Incredible, right? But I think he didn’t anticipate his window breaking.”

“Really? What a story! I mean, I have to meet this guy!”

“You liked that? Told you it would be interesting,” Arlo says with a smile. “I have plenty more that I can tell you. Why don’t we walk back home? I live a couple blocks away, and I can tell you another on the way back.”

“Yeah, sure!”

Sliding a few dollars across the table as a tip, they get up and leave the already empty bar. Grumbling behind them is the bartender, who is complaining about having to work overtime for two annoying customers.

Walking on to the pavement illuminated by the fluorescent street lights, Arlo starts his next story.

“Almost a year ago, my distant cousin had the scare of her life when her eyes turned orange…