ABSTRACT
His hands reach up to remove the camera from around my neck, the tape recorder from my shoulder. Then he solemnly undresses me, as if I were a small and very sweet child. I stand willful before him, and there is no fear. His face is smudged with smoke and dirt, as he reaches out to pull me down into the water. Fighting the forest fire for days has not worn him down but, rather, stimulated him in strange and unexpected ways. His strong hands move like small, pulsing animals as he wraps my legs around his hard body. Looking up, I see pine trees, smell pine trees, taste wildness. The forest seems to be leaping, blurred by smoke from the huge fire many miles away. But we are underwater now, away from the smoke and heat, rolling like smooth river rocks in the stream. And we are suffused in sunlight.
