Love is a Burning Thing

A Flash Fiction by Geoff Mead

This story won 1st Place in the 2026 WestWord Prize

Photo by Fachy Marín on Unsplash

I don’t like leaving Caro in the hospital. Nobody speaks much English, and we don’t speak any Portuguese, but there’s nowhere for me to stay and she was falling asleep when I left the ward. I have to go back to the campsite and get some rest, so I’ll be in good shape to see her, tomorrow.

I have no idea of the route back to Ribeirinho, but Billy Connolly will get me there. His Glaswegian burr on the Sat-Nav is familiar and comforting. Soon I’m driving north on the coast road. The sky is pitch black with a sprinkling of stars. It’s been clear all week, apart from the trails of smoke drifting overhead.

In 800 metres, enter the roundabout and take the first exit.

The inland road snakes up the hillside toward a pass. I drive slowly and carefully. There is no traffic on the road and no-one to help if I misjudge a corner and slide into a ditch or roll down a slope. Twenty minutes later, I crest the pass and start down the other side. The Sat-Nav screen shows a junction ahead and Billy speaks for the first time since leaving the coast road.

In 400 metres, turn left. Turn Left.

He counts down.

300 metres, 200 metres, 100metres, 50 metres. Turn left.

The road to the left is a gravel track leading into the trees. Common sense tells me to stay on the metalled road, but I’m so shaken by Caro’s sudden illness that I’ve lost confidence in my own judgement. I look out over the hillside and see a dozen forest fires flaring in the blackness, between me and where I need to end up.

‘I hope you know what you are doing, Billy,’ I say out loud.

I pull onto the track and begin my descent through the trees. It twists and turns, splits, and diverts so often that I soon become disorientated. Billy confidently tells me which way to turn, but on the ground, it makes no sense at all. I’m not even consistently going downhill. The screen shows the maze of tracks as dotted lines. It’s obvious now that these are not public roads but forestry tracks, cut through the trees for loggers and firemen. There’s no point trying to turn back; even if I reset the Sat-Nav to return me to Viano do Costello it won’t necessarily calculate the reverse route.

‘For fuck’s sake, Billy. Where are you taking me?’

For once, he says nothing.

Fires glow through the trees in every direction. I can’t judge how close they are or whether they are big enough to be really dangerous. The track suddenly swoops downhill between two fires. Sparks fly overhead and dirty, yellow flames reach out toward the car. It’s the roller-coaster ride from hell. I grip the steering wheel like a drowning man clutching a lifebelt.

Fuck, I’m going to die.

I think of Caro, terrified and alone in hospital.

‘Come on, Billy!’

There is a fork in the road. The speaker crackles.

In 50 metres, bear right.

Stopping would be a disaster. The only thing I can do is follow Billy’s directions and pray that the Sat-Nav isn’t throwing a wobbly. I wrangle the car through the burning trees, playing snakes and ladders with the fires, each turn a new throw of the dice. After an eternity, the flames recede, the track levels out, and joins a tarmac road, from which – at last – I can see the welcoming lights of a village below.

I’m shaking. My heart is pounding. I feel sick. But I’m alive.

I’ll see Caro again, hold her in my arms, tell her she’s going to be alright.

I breathe a sigh of relief, relax my grip on the wheel, and nose the car downhill.

Billy leads me directly to the campsite. As I pull up, he declares: You have reached your destination. Without me you would have been hopelessly lost.

‘Ha, fucking ha, ha, Billy. What did I do to piss you off?’

But I’ve turned off the ignition; the glow of the Sat-Nav fades to black and Billy loses the right to reply. I sit down on a bench under the stars, pour myself a large measure of Talisker, and take a swig. It burns all the way down. Now that I’m safely back at camp, I’m thinking more clearly. I must have chosen the shortest route setting on the Sat-Nav so its algorithms sent me cross-country. They tried to save me four or five kilometres and were quite happy to shorten my life in the process.

I finish my whisky, undress, and crawl under the covers. The yurt is a warm, felted cocoon but I shiver as I reach across the bed to where Caro should be.

‘I thought I’d lost you,’ I whisper.

I look up through the vent in the ceiling. The Milky Way is draped across the sky, almost close enough to touch. Tomorrow there will be more tests at the hospital. When I arrive, the man at the desk will again ask me if I have come to see my wife, and I will say yes, because he doesn’t comprehend the concept of ‘partner’, and because I discovered this morning when we negotiated my out-of-hours visit, that the word ‘wife’ feels sweet on my lips. He will smile and let me through the barrier. I will walk up three flights of stairs to Caro’s ward and ask her to marry me.

I fall asleep gazing at the stars and dream of fire.

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Author: Geoff Mead is a freelance educator, storyteller, and writer. Life has taught him that only love and stories last forever and he hopes to live long enough to prove it. He was long listed for the 2019 National Short Story Competition, and his stories have been published in various anthologies.

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