The fox in the fire

A box of sodden matchsticks lies at my feet

Raining heavily

Now beautifully serene.

Tiny fingers playing the keys to my spinal chord

An invisible painter uses condensation as a canvas, I peer inside. 

The charcoaled furniture and fixtures smoulder into my eyes

Etching themselves are my memories.

A thousand times before

This hollow space

Ashen possessions

Bare and burnt. 

A sky ablaze in stars

a maze of sorrow and solace, this accidental fire. 

The girls take their tea in the morning

Hard to swallow,

A life in cinders, upside down and overnight 

An accident waiting to happen .

A movement in the sticky dimness, something’s here with me.

Corrugated iron, an overturned trolley

In a land of metal and stone, of brittle and bone

Eyes in the dark, glittering from the moon

Traffic and night,

I’m breathing in, breathing out

Passing fields, Looking in I am sinking deep, a stone cast into water

drowning in the quiet, its beauty wrapped in this blanket of calm

A sand filled balloon.

 

The winds gust and growl, I crave my now the time again. 

This little red flame dancing

Saunters off through the debris

I grasp onto a railing with both hands.  Rust and dried paint come away in my fingers. 

My head hunkered, shoulders slumped and I wait for oxygen to fill my lungs and my blood flow to settle. 

What was inevitable was now painfully real. 

My bleary eyes were coming back into focus. 

The morning light breaking over the city rooftops and spewing its way down the streets

In the billowing smoke, the damp.

Our city’s grit and grime. 

In the places we choose to ignore, in the last place you look, you find exactly what you can’t afford to lose. 

In the eyes of the fox in the fire.

Author's Note

I have tried to tell a short story with knowing what happened that led to the fire and it is told at two differents times through the course of a day. (italics are the persons later reaction / feeling of guilt at the damage caused)

Reviews

[emmajoy]

There's an out on a limb surreal dance like crazy feel here .. hard for me to explain coz I don't have your view on things but, I know there's a long series of sights and sounds here just waiting to be understood. Perhaps the one view needs me to catch up alongside the other .. i will .. slowly

Welcome to the Cafe ..