The iron box was cold. Condensation pooled on the grate, where the morning hadn’t reached it yet. I stacked the split spruce too tight. The first match went out in the bark. The strike strip on the box had worn smooth in one corner. I turned it, used the other. It took three hard passes to spark. The cardboard offered a dry scrape.
The second match caught. Sulfur flared. Newspaper burned fast. Birch bark curled at the edges and took the flame. Smoke leaned into the room, pushing against the cold chimney’s still air, heavy and undecided. One damp split darkened and hissed. It refused to join. It sat at the back, sweating into the grate.
I propped the door open two inches. Heat reached my knuckles. The metal radiated a dry warmth. Loose ash slid toward the back. The smoke straightened, finding the flue instead of the floorboards. The crackle found a lower note. It dropped from thin snaps to a sound with weight. The kindling settled into itself, making room for the air. The floorboards held the night’s cold.
The visible flame was still small. It barely covered the paper. But the draft pulled the hair on my wrist. My hand went to the latch and waited. An older thumb used to rest on this same iron, listening for the shift. Never checking the glass. Just feeling the pull.
I stopped feeding it. I closed the door. The iron began to click as it warmed. The damp split kept hissing at the back. It would catch by morning, or it would just dry out and sit there. A single grain of ash had already wedged in the hinge.