I don’t think I was fully awake when the thing crashed in my yard. The noise came first, a trembling so loud the posters taped to my wall threatened to drop. The light of the fire came next, flickering in through my window in streams and bursts. I felt it hot on my skin, though the window was closed.
At that point the girl in bed really should have called the fire department. What a fool she was.
I got up, and set my books aside. I feared the fire, and thought my studies less important. I wonder if she’ll ever get to see those books again. I hurried to the back door, forgoing my usual slippers. I didn’t open it at first, just stared out at what I then presumed to be a meteor in my yard, disrupting the landscaping.
In this, she acted wisely. The flames had not reached the house and to enter the yard would surely have been a tremendous mistake, one she made after only a moment’s hesitation. Why couldn’t she just have stayed inside?
I didn’t put on shoes, just threw the sliding door aside and rushed out into the dew-laden grass. I shivered, the cold on my feet and the heat on my face colliding in my center. I could only get within a few feet of the burning thing. The hiss and smell of burning grass kept me away nearly as much as the heat and the smoke. When I squinted I caught a glimpse of the metal that glinted out from the center of the cascading yellow and red.
She should have run then, if not sooner. She should have run to the other side of the yard, leapt the fence and gone on until she could no longer see the red of the flames in the sky.
I stayed still, watching the flames dance in eccentric patterns. Searching for another glint of metal. I wanted desperately to see, to know. My curiosity wrapped my feet and held me in the yard. It had her, then, mesmerized in burning silence.
The night was so still. I miss the stars so much.
She hadn’t yet noticed that the stars were gone. The poor fool was hypnotized with flame. When at last I turned from the fire to glance at the house, I saw nothing.
She misses her books so much. It’s so empty here, with nothing but the grass and the flames. Occasionally she sees the glint of metal. Occasionally the fire dims enough for her to step forward. It is such a slow march. She is crying now.
We should have done something different, shouldn’t I?