Reader\'s Digest Canada - 04.2020

Cummings sprinting down the street

under his semi-deployed fire shelter.

“Get me out of here!” Cummings

yelled at a man driving a Cal Fire

truck, his voice cracking. “I’m burned

really bad.”

Bustillos hopped into a second truck.

Then he saw the driver’s face. He knew

that expression from decades in law

enforcement—the look when someone

wearing a uniform, which meant they

were supposed to keep people safe,

knew that it might not be possible.

“WHERE’S DON?”

The tornado had blasted across fields,

levelled neighbourhoods and rendered

the landscape smooth and alien. Two

and a half hours after forming, it was

finally dissipating.

Down the hill, Tom Lubas watched

people stream out of hillside neighbour-

hoods. Their stares were vacant, like

those of soldiers returning from battle.

Lubas helped spray down the back

of Kumar’s Tesla, which was still

flaming. The family had survived, and

Lubas now directed their saviour, Cap-

tain Raley, to set up a triage area for

burn victims. Lubas ordered five ambu-

lances, then left to continue evacua-

ting more residents.

“Where’s Don?” Andrews’s colleague

Mike Merdock kept asking. Eventually,

Merdock was able to drive up Bue-

naventura Boulevard and find the bull-

dozer. He figured Andrews was dead,

that he couldn’t possibly have sur-

vived. But as he grabbed the back of

the contractor’s shirt to haul him out

of his vehicle, Andrews twitched.

Together, they drove out of the deci-

mated area. All that was left, for as far

as they could see, was ash. In all, the

Carr Fire killed eight people, includ-

ing Jeremy “J.J.” Stoke, and ruined

more than 1,000 homes over 38 days.

But as they drove out, all Don Andrews

could think was, How did anyone live

through this?

Hot Stuff

What grows best in the heat: fantasy; unreason; lust.

SALMAN RUSHDIE, IN MIDNIGHT’S CHIILDREN

Hot water is my native element. I was in it as a baby and

I have never seemed to get out of it ever since.

EDITH SITWELL, POET

To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.

VICTOR HUGO, WRITER

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (DECEMBER 5, 2018), COPY-

RIGHT 2018 BY HEARTS CORPORATION, SFCHRONICLE.COM.

reader’s digest

46 april 2020