The Fire

I was awakened one morning by my cat jumping on my face, to the crackle of
flames from my studio above the bedroom.

The fire was so swift and ferocious that I had barely escaped the house in my
undies, with my cat and my passport, when the picture windows imploded
behind me and the A-frame erupted through its triangular roof like Krakatoa
itself - which we happened to have been filming a few months earlier.

When the firemen finally arrived I beseeched them to save my slide-collection if
nothing else. They replied that I was lucky to make it out with myself, and next
time I should leave the cat, the passport and probably the underpants. The Fire
Inspectors later concluded that the fire was caused by a ‘freak focus’resulting
from the rising sun reflecting off one of my holographic magnifying mirrors.

I had been struck by the light of dawn.

My treasures, notes and books had utterly gone. But amongst the ashes the
vinyl binders which had contained my slides were discovered as a single, fused
lump. Hard and sharp as a meteorite, this carbonized clam finally yielded to
saws and machetes, razor blades and tweezers. At its center were several
hundred perfectly preserved slides. Radiating outwards were different stages of
transformation, eerily adding to the already exotic subject-matter. The firemens’
hoses had contained a chemical which at specific temperatures has an exalting
effect on colour emulsion. Thus my Trial by Fire had shriven me of all but the
Dayak tattoo I stood up in, and these dream images of a vanished world. They
are now publicly revealed for the first time since they were shot, 50 years ago,
and ‘exalted’ by the rising sun 11 years later.