WORLDS ON FIRE

It does not know it glitters as the fire sucks on the pine and spits on the surrounding rocks, slowly floating burning specks up into the open night sky. The smoke gently caresses the legs of those surrounding the campfire and whispers a few words, slowly making its way through the gaps in the seated but curled over bodies. It’s not like the city here.

The man seated at the centre is darker than the rest of them. His hair is slicked into a low pony tail and his glasses conceal a sense of wisdom, foreign to most of the present tourists. Within minutes the small crowd knows his father was an oral historian. They also know there is much more to this man that they will ever know.

“I’m an anthropologist,” he begins, “a Native American anthropologist. There aren’t many people who can provide a perspective from within the culture. I guess this way we can meet half way. I am assimilated you see—educated, live amongst you, but I grew up on the reserves and now go back and study my own. As a man, I could be a feminist, but could never have a valid enough view as a woman would…”

At that point the seven surrounding people begin to listen with great intent. It’s as if everything just got so much darker besides the few stars above and his face which lights up in front of the flames. He checks his i-phone for messages before leaping into his next series of interesting facts. He is short and round, a “Mexican-Indian”, he says. At the moment he is studying the migration patters of his own tribe. They are originally from Guatemala. He did so well on his Indian reserve he went on to go to school with Uma Thurman. He hands the listeners glow sticks while poking the fire. He continues with barely a breath in between—about Aztec history, about the landscape, about contemporary issues. Why the cactus is the way it is, the purpose of the spikes, the way its two arms help it to balance. The Romanian restaurant manager in the resort calls him the “Discovery Channel”.

When he was younger, they find out, the Indian used to stay out in the desert night after night with raving yahoos, listening to pounding techno music. Now he runs tours of the Disabled tours. Sebastian, the blind illegal immigrant they take along always says if he gets caught out for crossing the border he will just claim he couldn’t see where he was. Another lady who can’t move from her mouth down, who can’t even chew spends her time finding cures for Anthrax as a viral biologist. Fascinating, they all think.

He moves on to the topic of UFO’s. “Too many drunks in trailer parks, I say. It has been proven that there is a correlation between Corona sales and sightings”. He takes a deep breath, throwing another piece of wood into the camp fire. It seems as if not a single person has yet blinked since he has begun. The Indian begins talking about triple suicides in Ireland. It is quite a smooth transition. The two cowboys from the ranch three miles down the road move closer as the Discovery Channel explains the way in which suicide bombers kill their ‘bodies’ only so that they become immortal. “The only way in which you can completely annihilate yourself is by killing your mind, your body and your spirit. Suicide three times over…”

The campfire watches as the tourists attempt to weave all his stories in to some kind of sense. He knows much more about a modern day world than most ‘Westerners’ do. His perspectives float from black to white to grey. As they sit and ponder in silence the Indian announce much to their dismay, “Goodnight, I’m out”. His glow in the dark T-shirt designs he specialises in are waiting. Besides Native American history nu-rave creations are his passion. He passes around his i-Phone with the latest print he made as the background then leaves the group. The campfire gradually fades, loses its glitter and burns out.