Yesterday afternoon, I watched from my office window as the column of smoke rose from the flats on the other side of the Tanana River. By evening, it had grown to a boiling cloud, sickly gray, visible above all the trees and buildings.
Today, the wind shifted, and the blackness rolled toward town, apocalyptic. The sun, first tinged red by the choking cloud, eventually disappeared as ash began to fall from the sky.
The world flattens when the smoke comes. The trees and hills become nothing more than silhouettes, cardboard cutouts stacked indeterminable distances away. The light is jaundiced, a symptom of air unfit to breath. And it is quiet. The birds don't sing and the ashy blanket seems to dampen every sound, save the waves of wind that fan the flames and bring more smoke.
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