A Pile

 A pile of sticks cut presumably of course from some tree, gathered together, drying up in the sun, a great big pile of them, impressive, even imposing. But so dried up did they get that when someone dropped a lit match amongst them, accidentally or intentionally, who knows, a spark caught and up in flames went the sticks in no time at all. The flames were impressive while they lasted, but, for all the size of the pile, they didn’t last long. The smoke blackening the sky could be seen from far off, people probably wondered what was going on, but that didn’t last too long either. To add, the flames spread to a nearby tree, maybe even the source of all the sticks, but though it too was blazing for a while, it survived the fire and recovered fine. In time the only visible memory of the fire was the tree’s blackened lower bark.