Fire Meets Gasoline : Wildfire

Chapter Eight : Mr. Sandman

JOHN MCHALE. I lived most of my life in Elpida, and I had only seen snow in movies and tv shows, never in real life. So when we reached the sign of Elko, Nevada, I became a young child in the middle of an amusement park, lost while eying the fallen snow slowly making a blanket everywhere. The white sheets would cover the roofs of the one floor houses, the mailbox stationed in front of the yards, the bars and gas stations would be sunken in snow, and the lights of the street lights were already on as the dark clouds covered the earth. I watched the snowflakes hitting my window and falling behind like flower petals in an autumn wind, and smiled every time I saw some Christmas decoration that perfectly matched the snow.

We ran through some hills and eventually lost sight of the town, and then we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, this time the large trees covered in snow made the horizon instead of cactus and rocky dry mountains.

Lin stopped the car right in front of Alexander's house, Lin's friend. His house was a lot simpler than what I'd imagined, it was a common suburban house with only one floor, a garage at the left side and on the right a fence that would lead to a backyard apparently. The outer walls were dark blue and the roof was covered in snow so I had no way of knowing how it actually looked, but I would've guessed beige. The front yard has multiple Christmas decorations such as snowman and gnomes. For some reason, it interestingly had a sign that said "no candy" though.

We walked up to the front of the house and checked upon ourselves how we looked, and I knew we looked terrible. My buzzcut was no longer the same, my face was a bit ashy, Mike's red hair was fading and his roots were showing, Lin's beard could fit a whole bird in it, and Jennifer's clothes were mounted in dirt. It was not a good first impression, but we hoped Alexander would turn a blind eye to it.

It wasn't long after Lin knocked that the man opened the door attentively. Alexander was not at all like I imagined. He had pitch black hair, his eyes were almond shaped with a void as his iris, his beard was clearly done to the point it was nearly visible, from his traits I could tell he was decedent from an Indian family, and once he spoke the word "hello" with a clear accent, I was for sure of my assumption.

"Merry Christmas bro!" Lin went to hug the guy happily.

"It's so good to see you man! It's been ages!" Alexander responded to Lin's excitement.

The guy was all bubbly and happy until he saw me and the others, it's not like he would see strangers at his doorstep every month, so I did not judge. We all introduced ourselves the best way possible, Mike even complimented the guy's house in order to give some extra charm. Alexander changed his expressions shortly after Lin explained our story, or at least the snippet of it. All Lin said was that we all needed help and a time to recharge our energy, and that was enough for the kind man to open his door to us. He only demanded for us to leave the shoes up close to the front door and that we were welcomed to stay in his house.

Alexander quickly showed us to his living room, a simple yet warm room. A brownish sofa with dark strips, a handmade wooden coffee table with ornaments of different states I've assumed he went around before. In front of that there was a brick fireplace with Christmas wreaths and snow globes on top of it. There were also many pictures of the man posing with people that all looked so different from each other and places that seemed so distant from each other. On the walls were the same pictures but in different sizes and slightly different poses, besides those pictures, there were also frames of maps from Arizona, New York, Florida, and even Alaska.

Lin told us to wait on the couch while he could talk with Alexander in the kitchen, so we all sat there watching the cozy decorations of a house that reminded me of my grandmother.