Young Writers Society

The fire was beginning to crawl over the horizon, and with her face pressed against the window, Remy watched as her neighbours scurried in and out of their homes trying to save as many things as possible.

Across the street the Flores’ had managed to pack virtually their entire house into their two door Volkswagen Bug, but Remy figured that mustn’t have been too difficult for them to do seeing as how they live as traditional Chinese do. This meant that they had no tables or chairs to try and bring with them unlike the rest of the neighbourhood had done. However, Remy knew that they had just had a baby, which she didn’t see being packed into the car along with everything else that they owned. It wasn’t until after having squealed out of the driveway and down the street that they realized they had forgotten another very important thing. They came rushing back and Remy watched Mrs. Flores fly out of the car, run inside and come frantically rushing out with a baby cuddled to her chest. Upon returning to the car, Mrs. Flores saw that a good portion of her stuff had fallen out onto the ground. She danced around, frantically pulling her hair and debating whether or not her petty possessions were worth any more of her trouble. Finally, with the hot glow taunting her, she settled with the fact that she didn’t have any more time to worry about her things.

Despite the doom slowly finding its way towards her - Remy found the whole ordeal funny, and underneath her tears she managed a smile and a small giggle. With the glow of the fire increasing, Remy mused over the fact that here at the end of everything people will still cling to their materialistic nature and give second thought to save those who need them, or petty things that they think they need. She was glad that some sort of maternal nature out - weighed every other nature of hers this time, and she genuinely hoped the best for them.

By now the neighbourhood was still; nothing was stirring but the clouds of smoke gracefully floating through the streets and in between the houses. Had she been ignorant of the certainty of her impending demise, Remy would have found the scene beautiful. The glow of red illuminating the brown and muggy fog reminded her of the times her mother would set fire to nearly everything she attempted to cook. The smoke would mushroom up and envelope her mother’s fiery red hair, and her mother would scream and shout and pull her hair (much like Mrs. Flores did just now) then she would leave, leaving a blazing fire on the stove behind her. Every time this would happen it would be up to Remy to extinguish the flames, and every single time she would punish herself for ever being hungry. When her stomach would growl her mother would leave. One day she never came back. Remy figured that she just must have gotten tired of burning. Remy was happy that her mother wasn’t here now though - she laughed over the thought that her mother would have probably locked her out on the porch to burn alone - out of spite.

Remy stood against the window and continued to watch until the smoke thickened and blocked the clear view of her neighbourhood. She wiped the tears from her face and pulled her matted red hair behind her ears; she sullenly closed the drapes and turned around and headed towards the kitchen. In the back room Remy could hear her father mumbling, and even though she was used to his non-sense way of communication, in this very moment it depressed her. For the poor man has no idea what’s coming.

A few years ago, when Remy was only twelve, her father was diagnosed with Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva - or Stone Man Syndrome. It was the same year that her mother had left, so Remy had spent the last three years alone. She was alone and watching as her father was plagued with pain and hysteria as his muscles slowly turned to bone - he was soon sentenced to his bed for the rest of his life. Remy became the primary care taker of her immobile father, but she couldn’t do anything other than wallow in the face of a greater unseen force overtaking the life of a man whom she loved dearly. Her father didn’t have much mind to care for long, for his brain soon turned to rock and he entered into a near vegetative state - sinking into his mattress and mumbling non-sense.

Her father had begun to laugh hysterically and she knew she hadn’t any more time to waste. She walked over to the fridge and took one last look at the family photos her mother had put there when she was still only a small child. There’s a picture of Remy’s first birthday party; she had cake covering her entire head, and her parents were embracing each other in the background. Her dad stood so much taller over her mom with his well-built structure and rigid bones; Remy thought about how handsome he was before this disease ransomed his body. Another photo was from a vacation they took to Mount Rushmore; all three were huddled together and Remy was in the middle being held by her parents who wore relaxed and genuine smiles. They were the picturesque of happy moments - Remy grinned and said to herself “It was good once, I guess that’ll have to be good enough.”

She opened the fridge and grabbed the bottle of red wine and the solution of potassium chloride, and then made a hurried skip into her father’s bedroom. The drapes were closed and the air was thick - the smoke was beginning to seep into the house now. She could barely breathe and every breath scratched the back of her throat, burned her lungs and produced paroxysms of bloody coughs. To soothe the pain - the burning in her throat and the weight in her chest for what was about to happen - Remy opened the bottle of wine and took three big gulps before making her way to her father’s bed-side. He was swimming in sweat and his lips were quivering but producing no sound. Remy bent over him and pulled the sweaty hair out of his eyes, and then stood to open the drapes hanging over his head.

The flames were huge now and just around the corner. Remy watched as they violently whipped back and forth, and both grow and shrink in size and intensity! The atmosphere was black and the fire was now the only source of light that shown through the window and colored the room a dark maroon. The glow scintillated over the lingering smoke in the air and produced visions of ghouls in water - at the sight Remy went from being depressed about her current reality to being terribly afraid. She looked down to her father whose eyes were bouncing back and forth, much like the flames outside, as if he too were afraid.

Remy rummaged through the bed stand and grabbed the package of syringes she had stashed there the night before. When she first heard news of the fire she knew there was no possibility of getting her father out of this house - with all of the machines he’s hooked up to she would have needed the help of an ambulance. Sadly, she believed that they would have more important priorities, and so she decided to stay behind here at home with her father and let the fire devour them. Remy’s main concern was her father dying in pain, so she decided to take matters into her own hands. She finished preparing the needle with a lethal dose of the solution, and then sat down on the bed beside her father.

She took hold of her father’s stiff, sweaty arm and said “I’m sorry that this is all that I’ve ever done to you: all of the hurt and pain. I never meant for any of this to happen.” To her amazement, as she stuck the needle into his vein, his arm jumped and his hand took hold of her own arm. Remy nearly fell back in terror; she heard a faint whisper and looked up to see her dad lifting his head. The grip on her arm tightened, and with what seemed to be all the might that her father could muster up he weakly spoke and said “It was never your fault.” It was the first time in years that Remy had heard her father speak coherently, and not to mention seeing him move! Remy broke down into to tears but for the first time in a very long time she released tears of joy; at this moment she felt happy and entirely relieved that her at the end of their lives’ her father could speak those words. It was an inundation of redemption, those few simple words, and now she felt that she could let go and that everything would truly be okay.

She finished the injection and then pulled herself into the bed and cuddled up next to her father. Aside from the roar of the fire she listened to the beating of his heart; it began to race and then quickly slowed until the beating completely ceased. She pulled her head under his arm, and closed her eyes, trying to prepare herself for her own agonizing demise. As she was lying underneath her dad she heard a deep rumble and felt his body shift. She lifted her head to see that her father’s skin was turning black (his body truly did appear to be stone now) but she reasoned that it was happening too quickly for this anomaly to be caused by any caustic smoke.

Remy laid her hand on his chest over his heart, and as she felt for any sign of life she heard, over the flaming roar, a loud crack as if someone had hammered a train nail into a boulder! Her hand recoiled from his chest and she saw that where it had been laid an indented handprint. From the within the centre of the imprint thick cracks began to travel outward, spiralling all over his body. She couldn’t understand what was happening, so she perched herself up upon her knees to see that the flames were directly outside the window now, and behind her the fire was crawling underneath the door.

With the little strength that her body had left she lifted her father’s stiff, heavy body and clenched him tightly against her own chest. The smoke was too thick now that she was unable to cry like her weary, tired body had wanted to do. The fire was now crawling on every wall in the cubed room, slowly enveloping them, and she hugged her dead dad ever so tightly. Deep within her father’s body she could feel a rumble nearly as powerful as an earthquake, and in her terror she squeezed him. His body thickened – he appeared to take a deep breath as he inflated in size, and then crumbled - combusted into ash and fell away between her fingers.

Kneeling in her father’s ashes, the flames danced around Remy, tickling her fiery red hair. Through the smoke and the grip of the fire she watched as each chunk of hair fell to the floor from the head of a woman that she was certain she used to know.