INCINERAT
Incinerat: Adj. A place or object destroyed by fire.
It had been five days and the land still smoldered in wisps of curling smoke. All the homes gone, including his. The grey trails rose like mindless prayers into the merciless air like loosed cobwebs holding to themselves only to be dispersed by the winds that blew in from the sea just beyond. Smoke from grandparents’ beds, children’s toys and family albums. Things yearning to still be. Here he grew up, fought bullies, fell in love and wrote his first poem. The Five Cent Diner sat at the corner of Main and Holland. The counter still visible under the ashen collapse of the roof and coffee cups cracked and sullen rested still where no patron would ever go again. It’s where he met his first wife. Huervos Rancheros and conversations till dawn until another fire erased that as well. He turned left onto Spring St. It would only be another block.
Everything unrecognizable save for the Pierson’s palm tree which curled in the air like a burnt matchstick. Next door was home. His home. A rectangle of debris mangled in the incinerat landscape. He knew where they would be. He walked over the scorched remains of the living room. It would be on his left. They had been on the bureau but now rested upon the ashen ground. His brother’s ashes. A thing that could not be burned twice. He scooped them into a plastic bag and headed East.
About the Creator
Kevin Rolly
Artist working in Los Angeles who creates images from photos, oil paint and gunpowder.
He is writing a novel about the suicide of his brother.
http://www.kevissimo.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Kevissimo/
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Buried alive. What a horrible way to go. Yazz lay there, in her own thoughts. What else could she do? She was hungry, thirsty, tired, mentally, and physically exhausted, and more than anything, she was bored. She hoped she would die of boredom before anything else, anything else would've been more painful. Like many people had, she and her friends had talked about what they reckon the worst ways to die were, it was a morbid subject, but it came up every now and again. Yazz had always been one to argue her point on drowning, others had mentioned burning alive, slowly and painfully bleeding to death, hung drawn and quartered, and being starved to death. It was strange that none of them had considered being buried alive, it had never come up. But now, she was thinking back to those conversations her and her friends had had, how could they have not thought about it? It took a lot longer than the others, you were completely confined, you couldn't move or do anything, you just had to wait, until your body was physically unable to support a life system anymore, which could take up to four days. Four! By far the longest out of all of them. She recounted some of these conversations just to try and pass the time, anything to pass the time. It was difficult to know how much time had passed since she had been underground, it was difficult to know anything. There were many things that Yazz didn't know, she didn't know where she was, she didn't know how she'd got into the coffin, she'd just woken up there. Yazz also didn't know what time it was, or even what day it was, she guessed at Tuesday, it was Sunday evening when she'd been buried alive, intentionally, and although it had felt like weeks had passed, she was still alive, which means she hadn't died from dehydration, and therefore it couldn't have been more than four days.
By Liam Storm3 days ago in Fiction
Comments (2)
This was already so devastating and tragic and then his brother's ashes came in. That ripped my heart out. Loved your story!
Excellent. Your description here of the burnt landscape is so good! "Grandparents' beds, children's toys and family albums." Nothing excluded here, made me wince.