The Santa Ana winds are blowing again, and Southern California is on fire again. This time, some of the fires are in northeastern Orange County. That’s far enough from here that we don’t have to worry — other years, they have come as close as lower Newport Beach. But the autumn winds and the fires always make for some spooky shit. I don’t even live in the canyons (which burn often, and are frequently said to be haunted); but the entire place seems haunted.

Last night, the winds stayed calm where I live until around 7 p.m., whereupon they commenced to blow with the fury of a demon. The sound is different to the snowy whistle of blizzard winds or the rainy howl of hurricane or thunderstorm winds. This wind has an empty rattle like evil snakes or dry bones. It’s as though you can hear how parched the leaves are, the moisture leached out of everything. It’s a lifeless sound, a dead feeling, and it’s not good. It’s like listening to the winds of Hell.

Then, around 10:30 p.m., the wind stopped. It slammed shut like the lid of a coffin, and suddenly everything was deadly silent again. That spooked me even more than the wind had done. And then I heard a dry rustling, a creaking of the wooden fence out back which has been dried and bleached by twenty autumns just like this one. It wasn’t a rustling of the wind, it was the dry crackle of something moving. I finally determined, through my bedroom window and the illumination of our backyard spotlight, that it was only a youngish and uncommonly clumsy possum, stumbling across the top of the fence, trying to navigate the ivy. But knowing that didn’t take the chill from my spine.

That was before the fires started. Today, our family ventured out to do our Saturday errands during the late morning: the usual Target, supermarket, one-of-the-kids-needs-new-pants shuffle. At some point I came outside and thought Shit, it’s going to rain. But then I realized it wasn’t rain clouds I saw; these clouds were unmistakably brown and boiling. I blinked in disbelief for a bit, thinking of the Catholic-school images of the Apocalypse from my childhood religion text. You would have sworn Jesus was going to march out from behind those boiling clouds, that strangely orange sun. And the clouds gradually expanded and covered the sky, even though it was a warm and sunny day.

But it wasn’t the end of the world. It was only another autumn day in Southern California during fire season.

I used to think of the smell of autumn as leaves crunching underfoot, moist earth, the occasional bonfire as neighbors burned the leaves they had raked. In So Cal, autumn also smells like wood smoke, but it looks and feels like the end of the world. Tomorrow the ashes will fall like snow flurries and cover the cars and sidewalks. The National Weather Service forecast for my area predicts Hot and hazy, with smoke. Doesn’t that sound a bit like Hell to you?

* * *

Okay. Enough of that shit. My family regularly watches a situation comedy on Nickelodeon called Drake & Josh, which in a nutshell is the story of two stepbrothers and their bratty little sister. As a rerun of the show started last night, our family had this conversation:

Sam: It’s another Drake & Josh.

Me [consulting digital cable guide]: Oh yeah, I know this one. It’s the one where they have the sheep.

Sam: Yeah. And the sheep gets pregnant!

[beat]

Ben [aside, to me]: Well, was it Drake or Josh?