I've heard it said that everything grows on trees, if you look hard enough. There's a place in Austria where human tongues flail in the leafy branches, flapping like birds' wings. Somewhere near Inverness sits a great oak whose bark peels off into cardboard tubing – the resultant produce is used to house our toilet tissue. And in this place where you and I now sit, our primary import and export is fire.
It is not clear to me where, and by whom, the harvest is carried out. Many mysteries remain in this world. But it is generally agreed that there are fields. Fields, aflush with roots and branches – wooden sculptures which have always burned and will burn to near eternity. The fire grows with rapid efficacy, and it's someone's job to traverse the fields, breaking the flames off into small chunks and stuffing them into a sack.
These flame-proof sacks are supposedly made from the skin of bears but, again, that might just be another rumour. Mind you, I've never seen a bear catch fire. Have you?
The harvest, when it takes place, is kept quite separate from our day-to-day lives. Certainly, I've never seen it with my own eyes. All I impart to you is second-hand – perhaps third-hand, given that, to be honest, the trustworthiness of those I swap stories with is, at best, questionable. No offence to yourselves. It's just that I tend to take everything I hear with a grain of salt.
It is truly best to keep a grain of salt on your person at all times, where flame is concerned. Salt is the only absolute cure for flames. If you are subject to unwanted contact with a burning artefact, you must simply rub salt into the affected flesh-area until either the flames crack off into dust, or the unbearable pain shocks you into an altered state of consciousness where you no longer mind being on fire and, in fact, grow to rather like it.
It is vital that the harvest takes place at regular intervals, otherwise the flames would grow too quickly and devour our world. Such is the way of anything that we, as humans, love – it must be tenderly cared for, feared, and controlled, so that it does not consume us.
The fire is carried to the mainland by boat. On early mornings, before the sun rises, you can stand on the grey beach pebbles and watch the burning boats roll in. The flames are conveniently stored in ornate patterns, inscribed on the white sails. In transit, the flames appear to be in motion, but that's a trick of the light. The flames become static, while the cloth billows back and forth, caressed by wind. Chalk it up as another illusion next to the glittering waves, whose glitter speckles are affixed to each wet surface with old sellotape.
No, the boats move, but the flames stay perfectly still. It hurts to hold a piece of fire, but no more than carrying a heavy weight. The boats' wooden planks creak and strain, but they do not burst into flame or fall beneath the waves.
To shield oneself from the flames, it is wise to place a dandelion in your mouth, but not swallow it, and hold your breath for as long as possible. Fire cannot penetrate a dandelion's oily flesh. The lack of oxygen in your body will disincentivise the fire's decision to grow into your lungs and blossom like fruit.
Failing this, grab a fistful of the salt from your back pocket it and shove it down your throat, flexing the muscles of your glottal pathway to better spread the salt out into a fine, consistent layer. If all goes well, the fire will choke before you do.
It goes without saying that the dandelion method is infinitely preferable.* Still, it's better to come prepared. Never leave the house without a cluster of salt, a set of keys (to your own home and/or someone else's), a small bag of rice, three dandelion heads (in case the first two fail), a refrigerated £1 coin, two dead bluebottle flies, and a strong memory of where your house is located relative to other landmarks. Once these items are gathered, you can commence the day.
If you are leaving any life-forms in the house when you venture outside – dog, cat, child, bird, or otherwise – there are various additional protocol to complete. Firstly, you must not leave until you are fully comfortable with the prospect of returning home to discover one or more of your favoured life-forms – loved ones [sic] – dead. The natural consequence of this is an overwhelming flood of emotion when you return to find them, instead, surprisingly alive. You will shower them with love and praise. You will appreciate them all the more.
You will swear never to leave them alone again until, naturally, the next time you must.
Secondly, you must establish a deputy, to stand in your stead as you go about your business. Assign the role to the most qualified, suitable and trustworthy of your life-form accomplices. A husband or wife is ideal for this role. Failing that, dogs are more trustworthy than cats, cats more trustworthy than child-humans, child-humans more trustworthy than ants, and so on. Use your discretion. Just know that, should you return home to discover some or all of your loved ones dead, or worse, your entire stock of fire stolen, you yourself will be solely responsible for having chosen the wrong deputy.
And if you can't handle that, don't leave the house.
* Every respectable home has a dandelion crop in the front or back garden or, failing that, in a box on the windowsill. If you have neither garden nor windows, it is suggested that you plant several fertile dandelion seeds in the spongy flesh of your left wrist – or your right wrist, if that is your preferred watch-bearing limb. This has the obvious benefit of allowing you to cultivate your own fire-prevention and fire-attraction mechanisms, plus the less obvious benefit of being able to tell the time via dandelion clock. If you live in an area where time is forbidden, disregard the last statement.