Of Scum, Fire, and Hope.

Some time ago, a few of us tried to figure out what united our happy little tribe of miscreants.

And we were drawing a blank.

Almost anything any of us liked was not merely disliked but despised by at least one of the others.

And then someone mentioned fire, and we all got quiet.

We are a collection of utterly despicable pyros, devoted to the art of setting things ablaze to an unhealthy degree. All of us know a bit of fire science, and our fires run the gamut from perfect coals for camp cooking to towering infernos that only an imbecile would get within miles of.

And for a couple of years, we accepted fire as the unifying cultural element we shared.

Then the baby came along. Our fearless leader begat spawn. And we all found her delightful.

To put this in perspective, we are not generally a bunch of soft-hearted baby-lovers. In fact, we mostly regard(ed) children as wretched little creatures that couldn't even handle ammo runs adequately.

And all of us would cheerfully kill in this child's defense. And by "kill," I mean "wallow in atrocity and bloodshed."

And in some strange way, I think that may be the only damned thing that saves us. Our own survival is fine and all, but it goes nowhere without some kind of future. And these kids that our own have started having? They motivate us in ways we don't fully comprehend.

Thank heavens for that.