Fire was the first thing that ever answered him.
Not with words—never with words—but with obedience. With a patience that felt almost holy.
The hearth had been there before him, squatting in the center of the house like an old animal that refused to leave. Its stones were cracked and darkened, the mortar between them eaten away by years of smoke and neglect. It smelled of soot, old grease, damp wood, and something faintly bitter—burned herbs, perhaps, or memories ground into ash.
The boy learned early that fire was not kind, but it was fair.
If you fed it poorly, it punished you. If you fed it well, it rewarded you. It did not lie. It did not pretend. It did not change its temper simply because the day had been long or the world unjust.
That alone made it sacred.
His parents shouted often, but they went quiet around the hearth. Hunger had taught them reverence. When the fire died, arguments became unbearable, sharper, louder, edged with panic. When it lived, even weakly, their voices lowered, as if afraid to disturb something that might leave.
The boy noticed this.
He noticed everything.
At first, he was only told to watch.
"Don't touch," his mother warned, her voice tight.
"You'll burn yourself," his father added, though he never looked up.
So the boy watched. He watched how dry wood caught faster than damp. How thin sticks flared quickly and vanished, while thicker logs resisted, holding their shape even as they surrendered their insides. He watched how breath could coax flame higher, but too much breath would smother it into sulking smoke.
Fire, he learned, disliked desperation.
One evening, when the house was quiet in that dangerous way—too quiet, the kind that meant something had already broken—the boy knelt beside the hearth and rearranged the wood without being asked. His hands moved carefully, reverently, as if touching bone.
He did not know why he did it. Only that something in him insisted.
The flame flickered. Hesitated. Then steadied.
His mother turned from the table, startled.
"It's stronger," she said, suspicious, as if strength were an accusation.
The boy said nothing.
From then on, the task became his.
He learned to wake before dawn, before voices rose, before the house remembered itself. He learned to scrape embers together like wounded creatures and feed them slivers of hope—dry bark, thin twigs, breath given slowly, patiently.
The fire answered.
It grew. It warmed. It stayed.
Cooking followed naturally.
His mother cooked from habit, not care. She boiled grains until they split, scorched bread because she was distracted, burned meat because anger made her forget timing. Food filled bellies, nothing more.
The boy watched and remembered.
He learned that heat had stages. That patience mattered. That a pot left alone too long would turn bitterness into everything. That stirring was a conversation, not a command.
When his mother fell ill for three days—feverish, sharp-tongued, half-delirious—he cooked without being told to stop.
Thin porridge. Burned at the edges, yes, but edible. Bread warmed slowly, not scorched. Water heated until it steamed but did not scream.
No one praised him.
But no one went hungry.
That was enough.
Fire became his refuge in ways he could not explain.
When voices rose, he went to the hearth. When blows landed elsewhere in the house, he focused on the flame, counted its movements, measured its hunger. When words became weapons, fire remained honest.
It never mocked him.
It never laughed.
It never lied.
At night, when he lay awake listening to the house breathe—wood settling, rats scratching, his parents murmuring sharp, half-formed resentments—he imagined the fire still glowing faintly, waiting. A presence. A witness.
Sometimes, he rose quietly and knelt before it, adding a single sliver of wood, just enough to keep it alive. The flame would stir, acknowledging him without ceremony.
"You understand," he thought once, surprised by the tenderness of the idea.
Fire did not judge the charcoal beneath his nails. It did not care about the faces he drew, or the silence he carried. It accepted what was given and transformed it, faithfully, into warmth or ash.
He began to notice how others treated fire.
Some abused it, throwing damp wood in anger, cursing when smoke filled the room. Some feared it, keeping too far away, letting it die rather than risk a burn. Some treated it like a servant, demanding heat without offering care.
None of them listened.
The boy did.
One winter evening, a neighbor's hearth failed. The house filled with smoke. Children cried. A pot cracked from uneven heat.
The boy slipped inside without being asked.
He rearranged the wood. Cleared the ash. Fed the flame carefully, coaxing it back from sulk to strength. His hands moved with the same care he used when drawing—pressure measured, intention quiet.
The fire obeyed.
The woman of the house stared at him as if seeing something improper.
"You have a way," she said, not kindly, not unkindly—simply uncertain.
The boy shrugged.
Ways were just attention, after all.
That night, as he returned home, the sky hung low and brown with clouds, the moon hidden behind a veil of dust and winter breath. The world smelled of smoke and soil and something ancient.
He thought of how fire consumed and yet gave. How it destroyed and preserved at the same time. How bread existed only because grain had endured heat. How warmth came only from surrender.
Something in that felt familiar.
Later, much later, he would understand why writing felt the same.
But for now, he only knew this: fire listened when he spoke carefully. It responded when he was gentle. It punished only when he was careless.
Fire did not demand love.
Only respect.
And in a life where affection was unpredictable and kindness came with conditions, that was a mercy beyond measure.
When he lay down to sleep that night, the warmth from the hearth still clinging to his skin, he held onto a quiet certainty:
Some things in this world could be trusted.
They would never hold him.
Never save him.
But they would answer.
And sometimes, that was enough.