The fog came before the fires. Immersive and mighty unnatural, its haze carried the taste and smell of chemical reactants. It conjured up images of dust mite clouds, insect eggs, and heavy metals that could subdue Los Angeles into docility, like an airborne opioid. Perversely forcing itself through our lungs, eyes, and mouths, like a shared invisible rape. Why here? Why la? Doesn’t it look like we’ve already given up?
I resisted its invasion, thrashing around my bed, battling the bioweapons with silver, carbon and herbal tinctures. I woke up at mechanical intervals shivering and swelling- fighting tingling limbs and artificial aches, at war with the great invisible enemy.
And then the winds. The Santa Ana’s, echoing like a wailing woman through the crevices of the canyon. Retaliating against the fog, forcing it back up the freeways. The Santa Anas cried a banshee, taunting and tapping at our windows, breaking down palm trees, carrying clouds of sickly debris in her shadow.
As for the fires, it was unclear if they were brought by God or the government. They began with a lethal quickness, engulfing the polished corners of the palisades. Swallowing pockets of manicured land with a fatal appetite, bleeding asbestos and lead and paint, melding the patent plastics of its homeowner’s prized possessions into the air. LA is outraged, LA is shocked. Which faction of our bipartisan regimes do we blame? Is it cartels or chorales of indigenous ghosts, commanding retribution for our greed. Sky-borne lasers or drones hellbent on devastation? Influencers are aghast, celebrities are homeless. Average Angelenos evacuate, as the fire creeps its way across the canyons, biblical and treacherous, bridging the gap between the infernal and the celestial- leaving a trail of terrible stars on human terrain. Fire, the nonsensical element said to have been stolen by the gods, returns things to their organic form. It devastates, alchemizes and purifies. It eats up what is false and only leaves what is natural. And not to trivialize it’s victims, but where else would fire go, but LA? In the wake of catastrophe, the city is propelled into action. Some were spurred by compassion, others by a desire to virtue signal- but both bode well in an effort to rebuild. Grief, however small, can get you into your heart.