ash paint
back homeA wildfire started outside town a few weeks ago. A blast of hot wind coming from the south drove it into us, and it devoured half of the town overnight. Now ash settles on everything, unmoved by the stagnant air. The local police number is constantly busy. The fire department is overwhelmed. Store shelves are empty. Flashlights shine throughout the day, searching through the quiet rubble.
I clocked in for my part-time job at the clothing store in the mall the day after. Bunny ran up and hugged me as I entered. She asked me if I was hurt and started mulling over my skin looking for burns. I told her that I was okay, that I lived on the north side. Bunny helped me tie my apron while Egret argued with the boss in the middle of the store. There’s no reason for us to be here, there’s no way anyone is coming to the fucking mall, she said. Apparently the boss had ordered mandatory all hands on deck for today, a memo that I missed. Egret stormed out and took Bunny with her. They looked back at me but I shrugged, where would I be if not here. I waited out the rest of my shift sitting on the floor of the dressing room, staring at my charcoal marked face in the mirror.
Strange things have begun happening around town. A volunteer in a search party was shaken by something they saw but wouldn’t say anything about it. Of course, it didn’t seem so strange then. The lady that runs the bed and breakfast reported that the orphaned children she took on for the time being had a habit of breaking out at night and wandering the streets. Then it didn’t seem weird either. But when a convoy bringing in supplies from the north passage was stopped short because the trucks in the spearhead overturned, I realized that the disaster was still ongoing. Some drivers reported seeing people in the road before the trucks tipped.
The amount of search parties decreased. People that lived on the north side started going missing. The only time I saw other people at all was huddled together at the doors of grocery stores, waiting for news of new shipments. The town had electricity still, but I heard rumors that the workers were going on strike or walking out or something, that we ought to start preparing to live without lights. I went on long walks to clear my mind. I couldn’t build up the courage to go to the south side, but I would sit north of the river and watch smoke rise from the remains.
The next time I went in for work, Bunny was waiting for me at the entrance. She wanted to make sure that I was okay. She helped me tie my apron again, hugged me again, promised that she would be there the next time too, and left.
One of my walks crossed main street. By then the police phone was dead. There were no more people huddled outside of the grocery stores. There I saw a fire engine on its side, plowed through a storefront that had been cleared out months before and never re-leased. Curiosity drove me into the empty building. I stepped through the broken glass and took in the concrete room. No one was in the engine, I don’t know if anyone ever was. I don’t know if anyone ever could have been. I leaned against the truck and rested my head on the metal.
Bunny wasn’t there when I went in for work today. I looked all around the mall, waited for hours. Not even the boss was there. In desperation I ran to her apartment building, though I didn’t know what room she lived in. I knocked every numbered door. I called out for her. I sat beneath a tree in the courtyard of the maze of apartment buildings, exhausted, as the sun set.
After a while I lifted my tired body and wandered the streets. I saw the mall. I saw the sideways fire engine. I saw the bed and breakfast. I wandered along the river that separates the living and the dead, and crossed it.
The south side was lifeless. Homes were scorched and crumbling in the efficient way that only fire is capable of. Trees that used to be there weren’t. These south side streets weren’t safe this late before all this, but I didn’t really have the capacity to care. A house that had a roof that still stood, a house where a fire still burned within. In a moment I realized how cold the night was, and how much I wanted to be home. I turned my body and ascended the steps to the open door.
I enter the house blackened by ash and illuminated by flame. I pass the paintings of ghosts. Pangs of grief reveal themselves and are warded off by unwavering apathy. I wander the halls half filled with smoke and buried in silt. I fall to my knees in the final empty room of the house, where a small flame eats away at a wooden wardrobe. I wonder where rock bottom is.
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