The Evacuation of a Placerita Canyon Film Set

Genevieve Anna Tyrrell

Up in the canyons, you stand frozen in the wildfire’s heat, seizing the sun blurred in smoke, like drowning under water, searching for the light—a glimmering mirage between the oak and sycamore branches, those gnarly thieves trying to steal what’s left of sky. Embers fly upward, outward, twirling snowflakes around limbs. You allow the heat to overcome your face, just to see how close you can get, how long you can take it, like when you touched the stove at three—the hot red so anticipatory, so tempting. You hear the shouts of canyon-dust men, bucket-sweat men, rushing horses, rounding up cows, shirts twisting in dusty folds. Apple boxes lifted, wagons circled, belts heavy with tools, walkie-talkies, gaffing tape. Gather lights, cameras, wires. No time to wait.

Run. 

Months later, when the ambulance comes for you, a fire truck will come before it. Maybe two. You’re the local Christmas display there’ll be so many lights for you. All this commotion for some passy-outty girl.

There’s no atomic bomb here. No wildfire. No one got electrocuted. Nobody’s house is on fire. There’s no real emergency. Nothing to see here. No. It’s your house that’s on fire. You dropped the bomb.

It’s you.

It’s you.

It’s you.

Ravens in a whirlwind ahead of the storm. They flit, they float, fly, then caw, as wind weaves them into sky, left and right and up and dip

down

diagonal

  down

down

Clouds roll into caw, rain drops patter palm leaves, smack elephant ears. The sky rumbles. Before you know it, the air is your ice box, the rain pours your coffee. You’ve been evolving, splitting into three distinct selves that fight with each other: The Body has gone rogue. The Spirit is upset—after all, dreams are supposed to come true if you work hard enough, right? Best laid plans have been made. The Mind tries to corral the Body, to quell the madness. Your Spirit can’t reconcile a broken Body.

This can’t be you.

This can’t be you.

This can’t be.

Author’s Note: This piece reflects a running theme throughout the memoir I’m finishing that shows the chronically ill patient dividing into separate selves: The body, the mind, and the spirit. In the first section we live through the chaos of a film set close to a raging wildfire, in the second section we’re experiencing the body as chaos and the body as its own unfolding horror/action/thriller film, and in the third section, we’re delving into the metamorphosis of multiple selves in order to survive chronic illness (however “survival” may look for us). I tried so very hard to contain my chronic illness by making my body behave itself, that I denied myself humanity. I wanted so badly to work in the film industry. But all along, the fire was growing larger within me. There is no escape of genetics. I tried to logic myself out of poor health. Mind over body. But severe chronic illness doesn’t work that way. Ultimately, my continued denial and stubbornness to live a regular life in a “normal” body that couldn’t be well, crushed my spirit. For a time, I lost myself.

Genevieve Anna Tyrrell is a visual artist, creative writer, and editor. Her writing has been published in Creative Nonfiction, The Rumpus, Blood and Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine, Hippocampus, and Carve Magazine. Her art has appeared in The Rumpus, Smokelong Quarterly, and Animal: A Beast of a Literary Magazine. She is an assistant editor at Ghost Parachute. Her passions are illustration, creative nonfiction, mixed-media, scriptwriting, and trying to leave this world a little better off. She lives in Orlando, Florida with her husband and daughter.