Through the Flames
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 4:27 am
It was hard to see her face, through the flames.
I wanted to save her, but everything was wrong.
I could not rise from my seat, I could not feel my legs.
I was held fast by a merciless hand, lost in its dead grasp.
It looked like a bomb had gone off in that car.
The chariot of our hope and happiness was a devastated battlefield, pulverized by first strike.
But the smoke, instead of an ending, it was only the beginning of my pain.
What wasn't shattered and lost to the impact,
Had become some strange sculpture of metal and flesh.
Cold glass became hot to the touch.
I realized only too late, only after the fact, why she was screaming.
Awakening to a higher pitch in life,
My nerves roared to full attention then withered like trees beneath leaves of blackened flesh.
She screamed again, then the sight of her was lost in a haze of orange that faded to black.
I felt the fire seep into the fat of my thighs, the curve of my belly, like boiling wax. Pain filled worlds and universes with its own bright colors. I tried to scream but could not even breathe the exploding air.
Her screams melded with the hissing and gasping of melting plastic and tormented metal. The pain began to fade. For a moment I could hear her again, and then my mind was filled with pressure. My ears felt like they were filled with wet cotton and suddenly I was alone in the dark.
I felt like a man lost in a subway, bereaved of my senses and companions but still cruelly alone in the dark.
Panic began to rise, as i felt my consciousness being pushed toward some small hole, like sand leaving an hourglass.
Suddenly i was outside of the car looking at my wife holding her children, wailing into the smoke and flames of my incinerated hearse. She did not know our daughter was already standing next to me, hand in hand, although her little body was still warm and her chest was still moving.
Our journey together had been interrupted so subtly, so deceptively, so finally. I watched her pick up the pieces of what was left and go her separate way. I know it will be a long time before I can really see her again,
But i have to take care of my daughter.
Through the flames we watch the world become a stranger, and the people we loved and touched recede like ships across water that we can no longer feel.
Someday the fire will die, and in the coolness of sanity and peace, we will be together again.
I wanted to save her, but everything was wrong.
I could not rise from my seat, I could not feel my legs.
I was held fast by a merciless hand, lost in its dead grasp.
It looked like a bomb had gone off in that car.
The chariot of our hope and happiness was a devastated battlefield, pulverized by first strike.
But the smoke, instead of an ending, it was only the beginning of my pain.
What wasn't shattered and lost to the impact,
Had become some strange sculpture of metal and flesh.
Cold glass became hot to the touch.
I realized only too late, only after the fact, why she was screaming.
Awakening to a higher pitch in life,
My nerves roared to full attention then withered like trees beneath leaves of blackened flesh.
She screamed again, then the sight of her was lost in a haze of orange that faded to black.
I felt the fire seep into the fat of my thighs, the curve of my belly, like boiling wax. Pain filled worlds and universes with its own bright colors. I tried to scream but could not even breathe the exploding air.
Her screams melded with the hissing and gasping of melting plastic and tormented metal. The pain began to fade. For a moment I could hear her again, and then my mind was filled with pressure. My ears felt like they were filled with wet cotton and suddenly I was alone in the dark.
I felt like a man lost in a subway, bereaved of my senses and companions but still cruelly alone in the dark.
Panic began to rise, as i felt my consciousness being pushed toward some small hole, like sand leaving an hourglass.
Suddenly i was outside of the car looking at my wife holding her children, wailing into the smoke and flames of my incinerated hearse. She did not know our daughter was already standing next to me, hand in hand, although her little body was still warm and her chest was still moving.
Our journey together had been interrupted so subtly, so deceptively, so finally. I watched her pick up the pieces of what was left and go her separate way. I know it will be a long time before I can really see her again,
But i have to take care of my daughter.
Through the flames we watch the world become a stranger, and the people we loved and touched recede like ships across water that we can no longer feel.
Someday the fire will die, and in the coolness of sanity and peace, we will be together again.
