Three Apples Fell from Heaven: RELICS OF ASH, BLOOD, AND EXILE By Paul Chaderjian photo by Areg Balayan A FIRE THAT NEVER GOES OUT A single ember, unremarkable in its origin, finds its way onto a rooftop, silent, unnoticed, until it catches the wind . It glows for just a moment, then vanishes into the vast emptiness beyond. But embers do not truly disappear. They settle, drifting into the air like forgotten thoughts . I am sitting on my balcony in West Los Angeles , watching the hills to the north. The city lies beneath a heavy sky, but it’s the hills I cannot stop staring , the landscape that still bears the memory of something lost . The smoke is long gone. The flames that tore through the Palisades have been subdued. Yet, in their wake, they leave a silence more profound than the fire itself . The Palisades Fire swallowed 23,448 acres with savage force, turned thousands of homes i...
