A Box of Weeds

The Fire

She stumbled out of bed and pulled the threadbare curtains tight together, leaving no gaps. It was too bright in this makeshift home. Her head pounded and the backs of her eyeballs throbbed with what promised to be another migraine. It had been three days since the fire that had stolen her house away from her, and still, she hadn’t been able to leave the remaining storage shed on the property to assess the damage, or go to work, or return to the living. It was a nice shed, as far as sheds went, but it was a far cry from the two-story craftsman that lay in rubble outside.

There were no friends banging on the door, no relatives. She kept to herself, had always kept to herself. Perhaps that’s why the Fire Department hadn’t come in time. She lived down a long drive, too far away for the neighbors to see the blaze until too late. In the end, it was her bladder that made her pull open the door and step barefoot into the snowy morning to squat behind the shed and do her business.

This was life now.

She tightened the belt of her robe and kept her eyes averted from the wreckage. Her body still showed the marks on her arms where the fireman had drug her from the living room to the backyard. She knew they would load her in an ambulance, so she crawled inside the shed, and hoped that in the excitement, her rescuer would forget about her and focus on the fire. She was right. People always forget.

The depression was the real enemy now. The hopelessness of knowing that she’d failed.

She hadn’t considered when she dropped the match into the pool of gasoline what would happen if she survived…