“How many times am I expected to do this?” The exasperated Phoenix looked at the new fires erupting around her. Her insurance agent had canceled her coverage fires and fires ago. She knew from experience that she had to let the fires burn to ashes before rising, so she settled in and tapped her talons on the kitchen counter – waiting for it to catch fire and burn.

“This is getting old.”

She had given up the fire extinguisher because it wouldn’t allow her to rise. The Phoenix didn’t understand why, but her wings were useless while the flames burned. The rubble had to burn to ashes. Complete ash was required. Cold ash.

She bided her time and used a coal shovel to scrape and scoop. After the last fire, she’d been sloppy. There were piles of ash here and there. They were so deep, and she was too buried in ash to stretch her wings. She had to shovel her way out.

“Damn chaos. One damn thing after another. Fiddlededee. Fiddlededee.”

“I’m tired of fires. I’m tired of the energy it takes to rise. I’m tired of scooping these damn ashes out of my nest.”

The Phoenix walked around the nest scraping, lifting, and throwing ash over her left breast. She had been sure the fires were over after the last time, so she bought new furniture. She liked the new reading chair. But, like everything else she had painstakingly replaced it was now a still-smoldering pile of coals.

“Fiddlededee.”

Her meditation practice helped. She was trying not to be so attached to things. But dammit, she had really liked that chair. It fit just perfectly. She could lift her wings over the arms and gently rest the tips on the floor — a nice stretch. Her feathers would ruffle in the airflow from the heating vent. It had been soothing.

That reminded her that she was going to miss yoga class yet again. Against her better judgment, she tried, again, to tamp out the coals with her shovel. Nope. It just fanned the flames.

She didn’t know why fires were plaguing her. She hadn’t done anything she could think of to so displease the gods. Still, just as regular as the grandfather clock now burning in the corner, the Phoenix would rebuild, fires would erupt, and she would again find herself wielding the coal shovel as she waited for the ash to accumulate and the coals to die out.

Maybe she was supposed to do something with the ash. Make a Golem, maybe. She considered that carefully. She had no idea how one went about such a thing, but it never ended well in the stories. She let the idea go. The last thing the Phoenix needed was more bad luck.

She shoveled and shoveled, the ache in her lower back returning.

“Dammit, I need a yoga class.”

In one of the cleaner corners, she curled up and cried.  She was oh so tired. Fires and coal and ash and smoke and soot and one big mess after another. She was oh so tired of trying to put out fires.

Eventually, the Phoenix noticed how quiet it had become.  

She couldn’t hear the crackling of fire or furniture collapsing. She looked around. She couldn’t see anything glowing.

She thought for a minute. And another minute. She thought for a good long time. And while she thought, the ashes went cold.

She felt her wings rustle. And then spread without her doing anything.

Was that it? Nothing? Was she supposed to do nothing? Just be?

She rose from the ashes and looked down at her nest. She looked at the mess and felt nothing. Nothing.

The Phoenix turned with the wind — not against it — and was lifted towards the light. Truly rising.  Newborn in the cold ash of an old nest.