The day the fire came, I was standing on the porch of my creaky old house in Cedar Ridge, Tennessee, sipping coffee from a chipped mug.

It was the kind of morning where the mist hung low over the fields, curling like ghostly fingers around the gnarled trees. There was something heavy in the air, a stillness that made the birds quiet, and the sky seemed too wide.

I felt it before I saw it. 

Mama used to say, “When the end comes, boy, you’ll know. The Lord don’t whisper when He brings judgment.” 

Her words crawled back into my head as the horizon split open with light, a furious, unnatural red. It was the same red I remembered from Sunday sermons—the kind the preacher spoke of when he warned us of hellfire and brimstone, of the Lake of Fire in Revelation. 

The air sizzled with heat, and there, just above the ridge where the forest stretched for miles, it began to fall—slow at first, like embers shaken from some cosmic forge—then faster and heavier. Burning stones streaked through the sky and shattered when they hit the ground, setting everything ablaze.

I stood there, frozen, as the first hit the town. Old barns burst into flame, the roofs caving in like crumpled paper. The flames leaped high, licking the sky as if trying to reach where the fire came from.

Mrs. Harlan’s cornfield went up next. The dry stalks withered in seconds, turning to black ash. The relentless fire swept over the land, devouring everything in its path.

The screams started then, faint at first but growing louder. Folks trying to run, trying to escape. But there was no escape. There was nowhere to go.

I thought of Lot’s wife, how she looked back at Sodom and turned to salt. Mama had loved that story, warning me not to dwell on past sins. But I looked back anyway. Maybe it was just curiosity; perhaps it was the horror of watching my whole life—this whole town—go up in flames. Cedar Ridge wasn’t much, but it was home. Now, it was dying.

“Lord have mercy,” I whispered, unsure if it was a prayer or a plea.

I hadn’t been to church in years, but it seemed the only thing left to say at that moment. The fire spread, and I watched as it consumed the world I knew—the gas station where I used to pump gas as a teenager, the diner where I met Clara for coffee every Sunday before she left town, the church where they buried Mama last spring. All of it gone. 

And yet, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t run. There was nowhere to hide from the fire that rained down from heaven.

The wind picked up, whipping the flames into a frenzy. The heat rolled across the porch, suffocating as if the air had caught fire.

I stumbled back into the house, slamming the door behind me. It was dark inside, the only light coming from the flickering fire outside the windows. The old house creaked and groaned under the heat, the wooden beams popping, the smell of smoke thickening.

I don’t know how long I stood there, watching the fire eat away at the world outside. Time seemed to stretch and bend, the minutes losing their shape. At some point, I fell to my knees, clutching a Bible Mama had left behind in her room. 

The words inside were useless now, but I held it like a lifeline.

No more prayers were left in me, but I could hear Mama’s voice—The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. 

The fire was closing in. I could see it through the windows, creeping up the porch steps like a living thing, reaching for me. 

I stood up, walked to the front door, and opened it wide. The fire was right there, so close I could feel it burning my skin. And still, I did not move. Maybe I wanted to see the end. Perhaps I needed to.

The flames roared, and I remembered the preacher’s words: For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

Not me.

The fire was all-consuming, a wall of flame taller than any man, bigger than any town. It swept over Cedar Ridge and over me, and in the last moment, as the fire filled my lungs and my vision faded to white, I understood.

This wasn’t just the end of a town. This was the end of the world. 

And no one would be left to tell the tale.

The End