The bush in front of the Jackson home was on fire.

Fires do not start by accident, most of the time. Fires do not happen 
spontaneously; either they come from a previous source of fire, or they 
are created by the flick of a switch, by an electric potential difference, 
or by friction. Fire does not ravage unsuspecting homes, unsuspecting 
people; when nature invokes fiery wrath, it comes with an earthquake or a 
lightning strike, or via mankind's creations (gravity-effected fallen 
power lines, capsized oil tanker, car careening off the road.) Since 
Prometheus, however, fire has had another creator. It comes in many forms, 
for many reasons: arson, pyromania, childish glee, mysticism, cooking. 
It's always part of a plan; it isn't involved in randomly targeted crimes, 
like armed robbery or rape or carjacking.

It was strange, therefore, that someone had incinerated the hedge 
separating the Jackson lawn from the street. The Jacksons were a 
relatively unassuming family -- white, Christian, two kids, not 
particularly well-to-do -- and they had moved three years ago to their 
current section of the Philadelphia suburbs, a nice cul-de-sac off of the 
main drag of Concannon Drive. Molly and Tom had been high school 
sweethearts who had been married after they graduated from college, a 
four-year span where they lived sixty miles apart (Tom at Michigan, Molly 
at Michigan State.) Despite having lived on both coasts, they had only 
been more than sixty miles apart twice: once when Tom was randomly bumped 
from their common flight home to California in college, once when Molly 
had to go to Chicago for training and Tom's attempt to take vacation days 
to go with her had fizzled under the stress of a crunch time of his own.

It was apparently a picture-perfect life, and yet the bush burned in front 
of their house. The neighbors peered out of their windows at the burning 
bush, not sure whether it was intentional, not sure whether to call the 
fire department (there was no danger of the fire spreading, as the bush 
had been recently planted and was surrounded only by dirt), not sure how 
this quiet couple had attracted combustion to their doorstep. The bush 
burned slowly, its flickering flames seemingly threatening to go out 
frequently only to rise again with renewed vigor, the conflagration 
spitting out crackling sparks with alarming speed before again ebbing as 
another branch fell off and lay smoldering on the ground.

The Jacksons did not appear to be home. After the first thirty minutes of 
burning, the bush had been reduced to half its size; the plumes of fire, 
however, were as strong as ever, shooting up a couple of feet into the 
sky. The wind had picked up, and every now and then a spark threatened to 
outrange the moat of dirt. Some of these managed to achieve escape 
velocity, landing on the grass as Mrs. Winters, next door, picked up the 
phone with the fire department's speed dial on the tip of her fingers; the 
grass, however, was wet from the sprinklers and resisted it each time.

The last main branch of the bush fell forty-five minutes in. It lay on the 
ground under the original location of the bush (whose current location was 
a matter of theology, not of science), and occasionally its flames ignited 
a branch above. Smaller satellite branches were also falling like rain on 
the loose topsoil, some going out upon landing only to be restarted by 
successive branches, others continuing to burn defiantly, the elemental 
struggle of fire and earth going both ways in turn. 

As the one-hour mark neared, the fire abruptly ceased. The bush lay in 
fragments on the earth, an open grave waiting to be covered, a crime scene 
littered with ash and charred wood, an occasional spared leaf the only 
sign of life. The neighbors watched the remnants for a couple of minutes, 
as there was still no sign of the Jacksons. The sun set on the scene and 
they retreated to their televisions, books, and movies. When the sun rose 
the next day, Mrs. Winters awoke and walked out to get the morning paper, 
surreptitiously glancing at the burning bush's location. Much to her 
surprise, there was no bush, and no sign of what had happened: just a 
barely perceptible mound of dirt remained. The Jackson house was as 
unassuming as ever; a light was on in the anteroom (had it been on 
yesterday? Mrs. Winters couldn't remember) and the lawn was as archetypal 
as ever. There were no signs of trauma; the corpse had been buried, and it 
was as if it had never existed, the fire edited out of the history of the 
neighborhood. Mrs. Winters blinked, picked up the paper, and walked back 
into her house.