Children

A short story about a fire, relationships, and structural integrity.

Children

By Miles B.

 

 

“We were such kids back then.” She sighed.

 

The vapor from her breath hung cold in the air, sentence unanswered. Hollow clouds crept quietly above us, barely masking the minuscule drops of light making up our universe. Eventually I replied with an equally ambiguous exhale, but it didn’t matter. Our thoughts were in the same place, even if our hearts had drifted. She nuzzled her head into my shoulder, familiar and unnoticed, and we gazed into the flames.

 

The fire licked distantly at our cheeks, supported only by popping embers and softly glowing pine. The heat helped, but the December chill still crept through our layers. Moist pine needles were nipping through our jeans.

 

“This feels right,” I decided. “It was the right thing to do.” We continued to watch as the structure blackened and charred, collapsing into ash and rubble.

 

Earlier that evening we had driven east, past the city outskirts and into the mountains. Streetlights and buildings no longer led our way, but rather a patchwork of tiny lights above us, leading us forward. We drove past fences, beyond street signs, and into the forest. Our car slowly shrank, and we became infants among the tall pines lining our path. We kept driving, until the neatly groomed asphalt turned slowly into cracking concrete, which eventually shattered into gravel. Unsurfaced and uncertain, the road trembled us towards our destination"to the cabin.

 

I had found the old shack (or what remained of it) a few summers before; forgotten and alone. It was a silent place to visit, but bared the scars of various tenants from over the years. Families and fathers, teenagers and addicts, creatures and insects. They were all the same anyway: wildlife.

 

The structure was like a halfway house for fuckups, recovering their way back into homelessness. It rested at a perpetual slant, littered with broken glass and rusted beer cans. It had a sloping roof that was straining to cave in, yearning for the sweet release of failure. The crumbled remains of a stone fireplace could be seen through four panes of cracked glass, half-burnt chair legs and used condom wrappers rested below its chimney. The front porch was a mess of rotten wood and missing planks, featuring a set of broken and splintered steps. The fractures were possibly from the weather, but more likely just fatigue, like everything else at the house, they were tired.

 

It had served as a shelter for the forgotten, a canvas to the vandals, and a glistening beacon of human apathy in my eyes. It was beautiful.

 

“You know I loved you…” she tried again, searching for the approval of an answer.

“You were fourteen.” I replied. It was all I needed to say.

 

We watched from the dirt, illuminated by the fire. Her freckled cheeks flickered in the glow. I could see her nose was runny and pink, despite the immediate heat of an open flame. The winter always took its toll. We were bundled in beanies and jackets, hoodies and scarves. Our breath danced in front of us, as if mocking the subsiding flames before swiftly being evaporated.

 

 “Yeah, and you were sixteen,” she continued, “So it’s not like age changes anything.” Her head shifted uncomfortably against my jacket.

“Whatever you say, kiddo.” I replied. She restlessly repositioned again.

 

Initially, the house hadn’t ignited as quickly as expected. At first, the flames merely traveled along the walls, not fully sinking into them, until aided by gasoline and lighter fluid. Finally the relentless heat managed to tear through the dew soaked paneling and consume the dry wood below. From there it grew. The sound of hissing floorboards and cracking doorframes echoed through the trees. Glass bits snapped and fumbled out of place, only feeding the chaos. BOOM. Something big exploded. Strained roof supports finally gave out, and the scale of the house came crashing inward. As the walls came down, the flames grew higher.

 

The cabin only had two rooms: a bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom (the bathroom’s toilet was rusted shut so it didn’t really count). The bedroom was occupied by ancient cobwebs and a moldy flannel sleeping bag"both slowly turning to earth. The kitchen also worked as a living room. It housed a fireplace, two broken chairs, scattered trash and plastic bags, and a worn, faded rug. Mold covered everything in a stench too hard to swallow, like thick phlegm coating the back of your throat. It was a sanctuary to some, rock bottom for others.

 

“Well I’ve missed you.” She kept on.

“I miss you too.” I replied.

 

When we were together, her and I, it wasn’t for very long"at least not by current standards. But we were children then, and six months was a lifetime. Scribbled notes had turned into nervous phone calls, flowers became promises, and backseats turned into chapels. It was us against the world"and it was pointless.

 

We were dreamers then, still are I guess, but in our own way. We saw life differently at that age. Young love carries a heavy portfolio.

 

Lust. Naivety. Passion. They were all our downfall.

 

The last time I’d seen her face prior to this was through the crack of an old wooden door, seconds before it was slammed in my face. But I guess that’s the way things go; endearing had become annoying, promises became disappointments, and faults turned into canyons between us. We didn’t communicate. We didn’t love. We just… were.

 

This was years ago, of course. We’d both changed since then, for the better. But so much was left unspoken, so much left up to interpretation. We needed closure"I needed it to end. 

 

“But won’t it burn everything down? She asked days before.

“It’s the right thing to do.” I responded. I didn’t even have to think. Her cheeks slowly crept into a smile, eyes widened, and I could swear her pupils began to flicker. I kissed her on the forehead and told her we were going to burn it all down.

 

She had never been to the cabin before, but gained the slightest twinge in her smile and leaned forward in anticipation as we pulled up to the gravel driveway. I turned off my headlights, shut down my engine, and unbuckled my seatbelt. She did the same, and we walked to the slanted building.  She circled around it at first, peering through cracks, studying the roof, counting the windows. Looking through a gap in the paneling, she peered in and sniffed.

 

“You want to go in?” I asked.

“No.” She replied, “I like it from out here. It’s perfect.”

 

The day before, we had grabbed everything we could"everything we remembered anyway. Old trading cards, worn stuffed animals, CDs, a typewriter. Everything. We even folded down the seats to make more room for cargo. Clothes, cameras, photos, jackets, hats, even homework, we piled them all into the back of the car. Anything we found, we took. Our instruments were the hardest. Barbeque fluid, lighter fluid, and three containers of cheap gasoline were our firing pin; old hairspray cans and spray-paint were our shrapnel. When the car was piled high, we headed for the highway.

 

Letter after letter, envelope after envelope, we let them all burn. We littered the house with tiny pieces of ourselves, only to watch them disappear. Each stitch on discarded baseballs slowly burned away, leather browning and stretching, ink sizzling off its face. I watched as my babied steel string acoustic, lightning bolt scratched into the pick guard, slowly twisted and snapped into the flames as if being rung out by something sinister. Keyboards, recorders, guitars, a child’s tambourine"we destroyed them all. All gone, slowly disintegrating into ash and steel. Treasures, trinkets, memories, all burned. Not gone"just repurposed. Into something new. Something fresh. Clean.

 

We didn’t talk much for the rest of the night, just watched. From igniting the first match and seeing it give life to the gasoline trail headed for the house, to following the last roof supports as they crashed downward, we watched from a distance. Dead leaves, frozen pine needles, and dried mud made up our seats"no blankets. We burned those too. We built ourselves a masterpiece from smoke and ash, like an embodiment of the past. Our magnum opus. Our final piece. It was beautiful. That’s how she saw it anyway.

 

Me? I was just happy to let it burn.

                                              

Author's Note

I've love all feedback possible. I already want to make a couple changes like having her have been there before so there's a connection to both characters, etc.

Reviews

[Becky]

I think that having her be there before would make it more meaningful, but you don't really need it. This was beautifully written; the imagery was great and the last line really drove home.

Wow.

Just... wow.

Seriously. Very well done.