Editor’s note: Enumclaw Middle School students wrote essays about how places around the Plateau shaped their identity. Five essays have been selected to be published in the Courier-Herald; they have been minimally edited to retain the author’s voice. The last three were published Nov. 30, 2022, March 29, and May 31. The final essay will be published Nov. 29.

As I sat down on the grass, I felt my cat’s soft fur on my skin. I got onto my phone to listen to the book I was reading. The soft fire light that showed onto my skin like the soft night light some people use to sleep better. The warmth from the fire slowly soothed me into a state of mind that calmed me, like a soft cloud flowing over you, or the day sky sliding into the midst of the moon.

I stared into the void up in the sky that was slowly swallowing the sun as it sank below the horizon. My gaze slowly lifted off of it as the sun fell deeper and deeper until it was no longer visible. My sight finally leaped onto the blazing fire. As it leaped up it almost licked the branch high above it, but then it saged down into a heap of flames, eating away at the wood that had turned black from it already trying. My book played just a little louder than the crackling of the beast in front of me. It was a calming sense. peaceful, you could say.

I watched the clouds turn into dust as they started to blend into the black sky. As the chapter ended, I slowly got up, I gently pushed my cat off of my legs, thinking to myself why it got so dark all of the sudden, or if I was just daydreaming, and gestured for him to come inside with me. As he slowly got up and meowed a goodbye to the place that he had been lying so long in, he walked back to the back door hastily, so as to not get too cold. As I collected my things and got up, I grabbed the hose quickly and dowsed the burning flames. I drowsily walked inside. I checked the time, it was 9:47. I should go to bed, I thought, I have school tomorrow…

I slowly walked into my bedroom, half asleep from the hour or two I had just spent outside. As I walked in I saw that my cat was already up in my bed, on the purple blanket he loved to sleep on. I crawled up into my bed at least, while on my way there plugging in my phone because it had run out of battery from the late night. I laid down and pulled the soft blankets that felt like clouds over my head, wondering what would go on at school tomorrow as I drifted off into sleep.