Orange Embers

Orange groves are burning in southeastern Hillsborough County...at least that's what a local said, as the airborne ashes danced on the dying wind.  The acrid stench burned my nostrils, so strong I couldn't smell the cigarette dangling from his mouth.  His wife, or girlfriend, nodded in agreement, her eyes squinting from the dust. 

I could see the smoke in the distance at first - wasn't sure if it was weather that I was headed into, as so often here you approach rain and depart from it, slipping easily in and out of the weather like a dolphin at sunset.  But as I got closer the smell wafted through the a/c vents.  Not an unusual odor for around here - burns happen all the time, some controlled by the county, others by farmers, sometimes not so rural properties forgetting that suburbia has cropped up around them, and then there's the developers.  This one was stronger than usual though, heavier, denser.  Perhaps the humidity had something to do with it, and the lack of a good wind.  It just hung there, a dun fog draped all over the west side of the highway, arching over to the east in a strange formation.  Turn your head due east and the sky was crystal clear, the sun making its exit on another day.

The local shook his head and bid me good night.  Damn development, he muttered under his breath.  I nodded in agreement, partially feigning my allegiance - since what brought me here is precisely what he was cursing, however, there's always a tipping point, I suppose, and I prefer to think I came in on the good side - the part that brought in jobs, some modest wealth, infrastructure improvements, and diversity.  I am not part of that damn development, I choose to think, the kind that strains the system, that gets built for building sake, that no longer take into account quality of life and simply insert quantity of livers.  I probably am, but these two don't need to know that.  I smile and wish him well.

I brush off some of the white ash from my windshield, dust off my shoulder, and hop in my car, as I watch some fireworks fly into the sky, silently.  I worry for a moment that maybe that's what caused the big burn, it's happened before, and will happen again.  I turn the car north, and see the clear air ahead, the newly paved and expanded highway, the bright reflectors and freshly painted stripes, and drive away from the burn, leaving the smoke and the smell behind me,  and head to the manicured landscaping of my suburban bubble.  When I pull in to my driveway, I turn my head and get an echo of the scent - it's still in my hair.  With the distance, it's not a bad smell anymore, more like the end of a campfire; a nostalgic scent as the embers slowly fade away.