FIRE. Do not reschedule.

Three people who have never met set out on the same day. A photographer with 42,000 pictures, not one of them on her wall. A nurse who reads every body but his own, and hasn't for years. A planner whose calendar holds an appointment she never entered: FIRE. Do not reschedule. All three roads lead into the same valley, to the same fire, to a wise man who waits for them as if he had never done anything else. His name is Dancing Fire. He explains nothing. He asks three questions: What do you see? Where are you? Where does your line go? Perception, awareness, intention. Three words you think you know. Three forces you were born with, and last used before you owned a calendar. A story about four days in the mountains, about the things we postpone until there is no room left for them, and about what happens when, just once, you do not reschedule. A book you read in one evening and keep for longer, for readers of The Alchemist and The Cafe on the Edge of the World. Which of the three stones by the fire is yours?