In the drought-stricken forest he has watched for years, Elias Thorne knows the job by heart: scan the horizon, mark the log, keep the fire from getting the first word. But when a wildfire destroys a newly built house near his tower, routine gives way to obsession. As Elias turns the event over in his mind, what begins as a single mistake becomes a deeper reckoning with guilt, aging, duty, and the uneasy question of what it means to make something right when no one is asking for a confession. Quietly devastating and rich with moral tension, Be Still is a literary novelette about conscience, marriage, and the burdens we choose to carry.