It was a short distance into the darkened woods. The trees loomed above, making a stark tunnel where we had to use flashlights and cell phones to see. The night before we found a rotting corpse of a deer, probably eaten by coyotes, which scarred us off. But now, we had enough lighter fluid and made our way to the nearly dry dam.

Students had used the area to party before. Remnants of a camp fire with beer bottles were strewn about. A tree trunk was used for seating, marred from drunken kids trying to light it up. This was all just a few feet away some abandoned bee brooding chambers. The dam gave the sound of trickling water, and it wasn't the same creek it used to be (the settlements around the college lowered the water level, and dead trees blocked a good portion of the path).

The last time we made it to the dam, we had our first Molotov cocktail. Smitty didn't throw it hard enough for it to break, though. Instead, it bounced off the side of the dam and seeped into the mud until the fire went out. But now, I wasn't going to let him screw it up.

He lit the end of the handkerchief and I grabbed the small, rounded bottle between my thumb and forefingers and chucked as if I were in the seventh ending towards the dam and a small concrete slab that raised perpendicular to it. The bottle broke quickly, and the lighter fluid splattered across the surface. There was no explosion, not even a magnificent flare. Instead, the fire, trying it's hardest, ate through the fabric until it reached the smeared puddle, which just caught and burned quietly until it was dark again.

We headed back to the dorms without a sense of contentment. We saved the bottles for weeks, and we were tempted to waste the lighter fluid. That, and we had waited for weeks since our last attempt and it all ended in a not so brilliant, dull and controlled flicker.