ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <html> <head> <title>soniat8</title> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Arachnophilia 4.0"> <meta name="FORMATTER" content="Arachnophilia 4.0"> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type"> <meta name="keywords" content="Soniat, Katherine Soniat"> </head> <body style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" alink="#ff0000" link="#0000ff" vlink="#800080"> <center> <table style="text-align: left; width: 753px; height: 32px;" border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"> <tbody> <tr> <td align="center" bgcolor="#ffe4bd"><big><big><big><big><span style="font-family: Algerian;">WORLD VOICES</span></big></big></big></big><br> <br> <div style="text-align: center;"> <big><span style="font-family: Blue Highway; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">THE FIRE SETTERS</span></big><br> &nbsp; <span style="font-family: Blue Highway;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">BY KATHERINE SONIAT<br> </span></span></div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <br> <table style="text-align: left; width: 751px; height: 32px;" border="1" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="10"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="width: 150px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204);" valign="top"><br> <font color="black" face="arial, helvetica" size="3"><b>Contents</b></font> <p style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><small style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat.html">Home</a> <br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="intro.html">Introduction</a><br> <span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="bio.html">About the Author</a> <br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat1.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Dog Days</span></a> <br> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat2.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">The Cathedral at Chartres</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat3.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Grafitti</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat4.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">The Dream Salon</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat5.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">The Givens</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat6.html">Street Kisses</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat7.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Cool Theatre: Oyster<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Plot</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat8.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Nightshade</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat9.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Flower Viewing</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat10.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Painting White<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mountain</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat11.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Composure</span></a> <br> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat12.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Impoverishment</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat13.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">The Wanderers</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat14.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Solstices</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat15.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Ghost Laundry</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat16.html">Family Story</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat17.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Blame it on the Cows</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat18.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Day Spool</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat19.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Hestia</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat20.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">The Fire Setters</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="soniat21.html"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">The Celebrants</span></a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <p style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><a href="http://chapbooks.webdelsol.com/worldvoices/index.htm" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> World Voices Home</span></a><br> <br> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="http://literaryexplorer.webdelsol.com/">The Literary Explorer</a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="http://writersonthejob.webdelsol.com/">Writers on the Job</a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="http://booksforgottenorunknown.blogspot.com/">Books Forgotten</a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="http://thomasekennedy.com/">Thomas E. Kennedy</a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="http://www.waltercummins.com/">Walter Cummins</a><br style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> <a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="http://webdelsol.com/">Web Del Sol</a><br> <br> <br> </p> </span></small></p> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br> <center> </center> <center> <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><big><big>Nightshade <br> <small style="font-style: italic;"><small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </small></small></big></big></span><br> <br> Rain hardly stopped the month of August, <br>kettle boiling on the stove all day for tea. <br>She decided to give in, as a painter might, <br>and let the shadows offer direction. <br>She'd follow with a sponge of gold lacquer <br>to dab the edges. <br> <br>At least the dusty Buick in the alley was washed <br>and ready for travel. Sometimes she thought of it as a country <br>movie marquee, a ticket past the rural drive-in <br>where stars kissed beyond the hood, <br>and she drove home to prowl through the warm, <br>black fields with the cat. <br> <br>Every now and then she reached in <br>her dreams and pulled a title out for evening. <br>Right now it was Baby Elephant in the Choir Stall. <br>After close-ups of dark red puckers under the Milky Way, <br>and a summer of Bach weaving through her empty house <br>in the rain, why not an image that ungainly, waving <br>its wrinkled nose at the future? <br> <br>The trick was to read the puzzle laid out <br>by a liturgical young elephant, <br>this animal, a first trumpeter of song. <br>Then came the training, the chaining and poking <br>at a spirit to make it fall into step, <br>to make it fall asleep <br>and keep quiet. <br>And here she had this elephant whose eyes closed <br>to nap in her dream. <br> <br>She stopped in the middle of tea on a gray afternoon. <br>How had fugues and a clean Buick suggested such travel? <br>And just imagine how this creature would sound <br>on a night years from now, full grown in a cathedral. <br>Echoes of all the long-held <i>misereres</i>. <br> <br>There was such persistence in this image, <br>similar to those of a Chinese painter <br>she once had known. He painted canvas after canvas <br>of dark train stations in pre-war Berlin—&#151; <br>glass dome of stars, <br>rails beneath crisscrossing like comets, <br>and the city's lanternly wobble in a far archway. <br>Night-sheen drew him, though he knew his paints <br>bought in China, overtime, would disappear. <br>Sometimes he even painted with warm tar <br>filched from a roadgang in his province. <br> <br>How would it be to live on a bench in one of his depots? <br>She could wear her favorite yellow scarf and <br>know with each breath she was fading a bit, <br>going away. <p> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><the belled="" air="" ringing.=""><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <small>First published in <i>Mississippi Review</i></span></small><br> <br> <span style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"></span> </the></span></div> <small><span style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"> </span></small><br> <span style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"></span> <span style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"></span><b><font size="5"><br> </font></b><font size="3"><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> </font></center> <font size="3"><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> </font></span><font size="3"><br style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"> </font></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <br> </div> </body> </html>