Do you believe in God?
I was not raised in any particular religion. My family was Christian only in the sense that we gave presents during Christmas and that was pretty much it. We didn't say grace before meals, we never went to church. Religion was not a part of our lives. For a while, I wondered if I was an agnostic or an atheist. Either one was fine by me. I didn't believe in Heaven or Hell. I didn't believe in God or the Devil.
I do now.
We lived in an old house that used to be a church a long time ago. You can still see some scripture written on the concrete back when they were laying the foundations:
Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
For our God is a consuming fire.The house was old, over a hundred years, when the fire happened. It was an electrical fire, the fire department said. The wires in the walls hadn't been changed in nearly thirty years.
I woke up that morning to a wall of flame.
I didn't understand what was happened at first. I was still half asleep, the last bits of my dream fading from my mind. I looked at my wall, where the light switch was, and it was on fire. It wasn't supposed to be on fire. My mind couldn't comprehend it.
My mom saved us that morning. She knew what to do. She rushed into our rooms and shook us from our sleep and herded us outside. Then she went back inside from our shoes and socks so we wouldn't be standing barefoot.
The fire department arrived within ten minutes. They had to break open the roof to get to the fire and when they did, it jumped into the sky, feeding on the air like it was alive.
That night, laying on a motel bed, I couldn't sleep. I kept remembering the wall of flame and the fire leaping into the sky. What if the flame was alive? What if it was trying to escape? It sounds silly, but my mind was consumed by thoughts of living fire.
Later, I would study myths about fire and fire gods. There are lots of recurring motifs, especially about imprisonment and how, if released, they will lead to the end of the world. Surtr at the gates of Muspell, once set free he will burn the Nine Worlds. Typhon imprisoned in Tartarus because, if led loose, he would destroy civilization. In Hinduism, there's Samvarta, a giant mare that is supposed to emerge at doomsday and consume all living things with the fire held in her belly. Even the Christian God is written about in terms of fire and how once the world ends, all sinners will be thrown into a lake of fire.
I never really believed. It was just something that was interesting to me.
And then, two days ago, I met a woman.
My last class let out at nine, so it was dark as I was walking back to my dorm. The campus was quiet, the only light from the lamps. As I walked past the library, however, I noticed that there was a light inside. I walked closer until I realized that it wasn't coming from the lights; there was a fire inside. I called 911 and reported it immediately. The operator said firefighters would be there within minutes and to stay away from the building.
But after I hung up, I saw someone inside. There was a shadow. I could see the fire and it wasn't that big, so I thought I could just walk inside and make sure whoever was inside got out safely. (Looking back, I wasn't exactly thinking straight. Why didn't I think whoever it was would leave themselves? Why didn't I call 911 again to say someone was inside?)
I knew enough not to touch the door handle with bare hands. Instead, I wore gloves and lightly pushed it open. I started to sweat immediately. The fire was at the back wall and it was growing. There was a woman standing before it, her back to me. She wore a black dress.
"Hey! Are you okay? We need to get out of here!" I shouted above the sound of burning paper.
The woman didn't move. I thought maybe I was mistaking a mannequin for a real person because of how still she was, but then she turned around. Her face was covered by a veil. Her hands were clad in black arm-length gloves. The fire rose behind her.
As she walked towards me, I felt light headed. There was smoke all around and I knew I shouldn't be breathing it in. I should get in the floor. I sank to my knees. The woman stood above me. She was wreathed in smoke.
She leaned down and lifted up her veil. I can't remember her face, I just know it was so beautiful that I couldn't breath. She leaned closer and kissed me on the cheek. There was a warmth and then pain. Then she whispered something into my ear.
Firefighters found me unconscious and dragged me out. I was hooked up to a respirator for the rest of the night. The fire department said that no cause of the fire could be found, although they weren't ruling out arson.
But I know what happened. I know what will happen. I know how the world will end. I know because she told me. I can still feel the pain from her kiss. And I remember her voice saying those seven words, showing me, telling me, confirming what I had always known:
"For our God is a consuming fire."
