Around noon on March 14, 2022, I noticed a flurry of activity near the fence surrounding our wind project’s lay down and operations and maintenance areas. I soon realized that some workers had started a blaze. Seconds later, it was out of control, tearing its way toward the northeast and moving as fast as liquid. Later that day, another fire broke loose and took the hill just over the fence from the schoolhouse. It was ferociously hungry and did not want to die. It wasn’t until well into the next day that the fire relented to an army of fire trucks, planes, and helicopters that had come from as far as Wichita Falls. By that time, it had burned over 3,500 acres.
At 3:55 a.m. on March 15, my father, Glenn Dale Duncan, passed away. He always claimed he wasn’t afraid to die, that a higher power was with him his whole life and would comfort him when it was time to go. But when darkness overwhelmed him, it was different. He fought hard even in the haze of pain killers and sedatives, shouting, “Don’t let me die” in his desperation. He was adamant about not destroying his body by cremation—he wanted a traditional burial with a coffin, another way to extend life by preserving the body. I later learned that dad had made inquiries about the possibility of freezing his body in the hopes that one day it could be regenerated.
In the dark part of my imagination, I wonder if the intensity of wanting to live somehow caused the conflagration? Did he make a Faustian deal with a seductive visitor that allowed him to live a few hours more in exchange for this calamity?
