What We Did to Survive

I’m a miserable lousy failure.

A collection of football-sized rocks circles the stack of driftwood I collected. The more I stare at my terribly built fire pit in the moonlight, the angrier I get. My hand tightens around the lighter in my palm.

Jackson was right. The lighter came right back to life after it dried, but it turns out, even the best lighter isn’t much help to an incompetent fire builder.

Time and time again, the flame licked along the withered leaves and small branches I collected from the forest, only to smoke itself out rather than catch on the main pieces of wood.