Things Lost in the Fire

-The breeze blowing against the trees, the overgrown bushes and the buildings. A frenetic waving of green. A ripple of colorful blotches, as life attempts to hold back the elements. The balcony swept by the breath of the earth in its rotation. The falling ash disintegrating before collapsing onto the concrete fixture of the balcony. Light pierces through the clouds, one solitary ray, having had the strength enough to unveil a patch of clouds.
Things lost in the fire: two spiral notebooks filled with the confessions of a mind spiraling out of sense, three fine point pens-the ones responsible for the black blotches which completely obscure mistakes, misspellings, the missteps of the pen and the writer, as well as, sadly, sometimes the strokes of brilliance-in a small wooden box-some Asian artifact, the box, like so many of the trinkets also burned. There were closets filled with clothes. An entire wardrobe gone, leaving him with only what he was wearing at the time of burning. The blue jeans with an airy crotch, the lighter blue polo, faded plaid grey boxers, faded black socks and the worn pair of New Balance trainers. All of these now with the scent bound to them. Even after two washings and a soaking, the smell still intact. The scent of ash before it becomes nothing.
Wearing the same faded airy crotched jeans-the hole in them now sewn, held together by a few sparse threads-the worn trainers and a white undershirt he happened upon while searching his trunk, after the fire. He sits on the faux bamboo-some synthetic material fashioned after the stalk-stool, an old notebook in hand. One of the few he had left behind when he left this same building months back. Inside the notebook, the pages filled with scribblings. The myriad ideas he would someday work into a story, a novel, a screenplay, something greater and larger then a single sentence or two. Something he thought would make his dreams material. The object with which he would attain one of the many prizes he had dreamt of at the time he made the scribblings. He doesn’t care to read them over. It’s been years since and there’s no point now, life changes. In the many months since he left this place and the many years gone by since the notebook was valued, he’s become a different person.
Several hundred books, only half of which he had actually read or skimmed through, charred now in the remains. How many words lost? Many his own, scribbled into the margins. A Shakespeare Co. paper bag he had held onto for several years now, a reminder of his trip across the pond. His journey through the four walls where many great writers came and went, nothing more than ash now. His wife’s maternity clothes, along with much of the clothes she had owned before the child, were in the closet. Half of her wardrobe had been in her SUV, as she always seemed to need a quick change. The Bugaboo stroller, an expensive contraption which they had argued about before purchasing and had only served them a couple of months before its being consumed by the fire. The toddler’s clothes had all been saved, all neatly folded into an overnight bag which usually remained in the back of the SUV.
Uncorking a bottle of Belgian Ale, he thinks of those trips of his youth, when he had the freedom to wander, arguing with no one but himself. Taking a swig of rich amber, his skin reacts to the cold and he shivers. He places the bottle near the legs of the stool and takes out a black pen. He begins to scribble his thoughts on the paper, but after minutes of silence, all he manages is a dot of ink, the starting point from which each of his sentences has been born. He stares at the little black, now blotch, as the ink spreads into the blue lines of the notebook paper. He stares at it, as if it’s all already been written. The story. And how many arguments has he entertained, in which he felt somehow lifted from the present to become an observer of the scene. In those moments, himself the player and himself the observer, he became keenly aware that the words already existed long before their utterance. The script became audible in the tongues of those thus engaged, but himself the observer was aware the script had already existed and himself the player was simply fulfilling the role he had been given, then, in those moments. So then, why should he argue, except that the argument was already written and through whichever of life’s twists and fate’s actions, the words bore the sound created by his vocal chords? Sometimes this is how it is when he writes, his hand at the whim of the strings he cannot see but which move him. Though, there are those moments in which he is left alone, to dig and fight and struggle for the words, for the sounds, for the etchings, those little characters, which perhaps have not yet been written.
There were photos, thousands of them. They had been stored in the garage. He had enjoyed taking photos through college and for years after. His wife had never been too keen on this hobby. She claimed it took up too much space to store the photos. There had been two sizeable boxes full. She really simply hated the characters in the photos, always being one to suspect her husband of holding onto things, and every woman, representing a potential ex. Circular discircuitous thinking. The photos represented a large portion of his life. The years he had spent running around with a camera and sitting alone in the dark room he had shared with a friend. They were all gone. All gone! The photos of their wedding, of the child’s birth, of their first road trip, the baby growing, each moment taken, turned into ash. Several lifetimes dashed.
He sits and stares out at the street below. The cars pass, each with its own agenda and purpose. He watches the scatter of people walking by on the sidewalks. He watches how they all avoid each other. The couples and the severals all try to stay out of each others way. If this were some other town and maybe at some other time in history, they would offer each other some passing pleasantry, he thinks, maybe they might even notice I’m here. He drops the pen and reaches down for the bottle. He watches as the street clears and it’s left empty. The only cars on the street are his wife’s SUV and his own compact. As his eyes pan to them, he starts thinking about all the child clutter still in the SUV. He hasn’t bothered with it since he parked it. He is startled by the sound of a kid crying. He turns quickly and rises off the stool at the same time. He makes his way through the beaded curtain on the inside of the sliding door. He lets gravity work, as he plops himself on the couch. His eyes filled of that same emptiness which they’ve carried for months now.
The fire consumed all the electronics; the cameras, the printer, the computers, the Frigidaire, the television and stereo. It had charred the stacks of magazines he had collected, and those his wife had neglected to throw away. It had swallowed those stupid couches he hated, the ones she had picked out with such glee. It had first shriveled and then ignited the blinds. It had torn through the beams of the house, tearing at the house’s foundation, pulling down the roof tile and beam after tile and beam. It had charred and cracked the old and rusting plumbing, melted down the wiring. It had attacked the house mercilessly. It had attacked everything mercilessly, taking everything that mattered to him.