Yule. Winter Solstice. The shortest day.

"No, the longest night," she said with a wink.

He always enjoyed the solstice, especially since he started his gig with Shar-melle. That crazy artist chick from the valley. Shar-melle. Hybrid name change from her real name.

"Carl, you have to promise not to tell a living soul," she told him one day, "but my name used to be Sharon Melanie Atkinson."

Carl still had no idea why she confided in him the way she did. She cried on his shoulder when the courts refused to let her change her name to . He had no idea why she wanted to do that, and a month later, when the artist formerly known as Prince was allowed to change his name to a symbol. Shar-melle went on a rampage in her loft, lighting the relics of her childhood on fire as she flung them against the wall.

It was the night of her opening at the Carlson Galleries on Folsom Avenue, and Carl arrived to pick her up at 6:30. Piles of smoldering ash lay in the corners of the room, and as Carl surveyed the area he saw sketchbooks and notebooks in a child's hand. Blackened Lincoln Logs and charred Tinker Toys were scattered about the room. She said nothing as she gathered her coat and shoes.

"Change them," she insisted of the Bradley Carlson. "The name is wrong."

"But the public will be here in less than forty minutes!"

"Change them. Shar-melle. Capital S-H-A-R-hyphen-small M-E-L-L-E." and Bradley dutifully began re-printing the labels. The last was hung five minutes after the opening. Nobody noticed.

"Carl," she mused on the ride home from the opening, "I think I should like to work with fire. Performance pieces. Organic. Very organic. The changes which occur, both in the flame itself and in the object consumed. Commodity commentary. Yes. I think I should like that very much."

Carl nodded. He didn't know much about art, but he knew what he liked. He especially liked the free wine and cheese at the openings.

Tonight was different, though. This Yule, this Solstice was Shar-melle's most daring and notable achievement. She planned to protest human rights abuses through a guerrilla performance, and Carl was privy to the plans from the beginning.

"Carl," she asked as they shopped on day, "have you ever noticed that people care more that 'Fur is Dead' and 'Meat is Murder' than the human rights abuses going on in our own American prisons?"

"I'm not really sure I follow you," replied Carl. He knew this was going to be another one of those conversations.

"You could go into a prison and beat up an inmate, but because they've been convicted and supposedly have no rights, it's OK. But if you go to the zoo and feed marshmallows to the polar bears, the zoo keepers throw you out and you're charged with a misdemeanor."

"Umm, OK." replied Carl. He wasn't sure how else to respond. He didn't follow much news.

Shar-melle spun the rack of impulse-buy postcards at the checkout stand. Her gaze stopped on one but Carl couldn't tell which. She suddenly whirled around.

"Carl. I can use my performances to get the message out. To expose the ludicrous disparities in the world!" She dropped her parcels, took Carl's hand in tow, and ran from the store.

Back in her loft, her carefully conceived plan began to take shape. On her birthday, the winter solstice, she would break into the zoo, and perform her fire pieces in the animal cages. She would risk her freedom to light fires of disparity that the world would see. A statement, issued to the press would be published the following day, as the headlines broke. She saw it as a step in the right direction, and Carl would drive the car that would get her into the zoo.

And now, the gate loomed before them, as Carl gunned the engine and broke through the barricade. They headed toward the African Savannah, Shar-melle reasoned that with all the savannah fires, these animals would be least disturbed by the fires she set in their feed-boxes.

First stop, the rhinos. She stood up through the moon roof, and hurled a flaming torch to the feed box, the dry hay bursting to flame. Similarly with the elephants, and hippos. As Carl drove, Shar-melle suddenly grabbed his shoulder.

"CARL!" she screamed.

Startled, he braked hard, the car spun, and Shar-melle scooted out of the moon roof and to the side of the car.

"Giraffes, Carl. Giraffes! My favorite animals. They got me into art. A surrealist painting of giraffes got me interested in art." Then she bolted. Carl heard the chopper first, then the distant wail of sirens. He got out of the car to shout a warning, but Shar-melle couldn't hear him.

Carl thought, "It's just a job," and scampered to the bushes just as the police helicopter with searchlights rounded the giraffe enclosure. He heard a garbled warning through a loudspeaker, saw Shar-melle raise her arm, torch aflame, in defiance, as five squad cars rounded the bend. Another garbled warning. Shar-melle laughed maniacally as a shot rang out. Her body convulsed, the torch flew into the pen, unaimed. Landing on a bed of straw with sleepy giraffes, the animals were suddenly aflame, rising quickly and stampeding through their enclosure. Carl thought, almost instinctively, "Stop. Drop. Roll." The giraffes didn't, although zoo keepers with fire extinguishers were entering the pen. Carl whirled as he heard a voice.

"Gee-rrraffes." In what sounded to Carl like a Spanish accent. "Gee-rrraffes."

Carl saw a short man, with dark hair and a long handlebar mustache. His eyes were wide with wonder, as a smile grew quickly across his face. He looked at Carl, pointed to the tableau before him, and once more said, "Gee-rrraffes." He pressed a button on a box he held, and in a flash of violet light, he was gone.

Carl did know that this scene was destined to repeat itself for an eternity of soltices.  ¶ 12:16