January Fire
At first when the house began to burn we thought it was a dream. Both of us did, I found out later — even then, we still met every night in a landscape of our fears. I thought I saw a green-red demon laughing at us from the flames. But it was the Christmas wreath on the bedroom door, crackling in the blaze. That day we had agreed to take it down in the morning, just as we had agreed to have Christmas in our house this year, one last time.
We woke at the same moment, and we knocked into each other jumping out of bed. We had not touched this much in months. The smoke filled our eyes and made us choke. We crawled to the kitchen.
Smoke trickled up from under the kitchen door. We couldn’t tell if it felt too hot to open. We held our hands against the wood until we couldn’t stand it anymore. Then my husband reached up and turned the knob.
In the second before the door swung to, I had a single, clear thought. I thought that we would die together, here, in this house — that this was what was left for us, and it was right and good.
Of course the kitchen was untouched, we called the fire department, we divorced and I met you. But sometimes I still feel that my real life ended that night, and that all that followed has been a diversion — pleasant, yes, sometimes even joyful, but ultimately without meaning.