The embers leaping from the window looked like glinting phoenix feathers, vibrant and smoldering against the deep blue of morning’s twilight. The woman’s shadow leaped erratically at her back like a cape she knelt by a bucket, her feet crowded by the few remaining detritus of her life: One photo each of parents and grandparents (the dead ones), a smoking folder labelled ‘DO NOT LOSE,’ the blankets she had been sleeping in which would now irreparably smell of smoke, her cat, ginger and angry and stuffed into the singed carrier she’d kicked out the door while snatching the jacket with her wallet in the pocket, the old laptop from college, still covered in dripping stickers (the new one had been too hot to touch), and her phone, the power chord still dangling from the end like a rat’s tail, the adapter still in the wall inside.
Her hands flashed in the light of the flames pouring from the duplex as she dunked a rag in the bucket and pulled it back out again, water spraying a cluster of rubies to the street as she yanked the cloth over her face, her numb fingers trembling in the cold night air. Liquid streamed down her already-soaked sleeping t-shirt, soon to be her everyday t-shirt. She glanced down at her feet, scanning – laptop, Viraj, family, papers—the door of the apartment next to hers slammed open, releasing a cloud of boiling smoke. Two men stumbled out, one with his arms full of diapers and the other with his arms full of their son, his howls lost in the chittering and snapping from the blaze behind them.
“Asha!” Jason hacked out between coughs, trying to turn his head away from the child in his arms. Asha staggered to her feet, bustling forward to take the bawling infant while Jason braced his arms on his knees, coughing. The diapers scattered about José’s feet as he dumped them into the couple’s own lifeboat pile, then made a beeline for the bucket Asha had knelt by, ripping his face covering free to dip it in the frigid waters.
Mrs. Valasquez, the gray-haired matron who resided in the duplex across from theirs tottered into view, her arms overflowing with thick blankets – Quilts embroidered with hills and stars, a fleece blanket from the birth of her granddaughter, the afghan she wore over her head on Halloweens as a witch – and relieved Asha of the squalling Jaydan, bundling him in the hospital blanket. Jason straightened up, mumbling a string of Spanish Asha couldn’t make out but which Mrs. Valasquez nodded to, her ears close to his lips as the she, Jason and the elderly woman moved away from the heat licking at their backs.
Asha’s nose and fingertips had lost all feeling, the water leeching the heat from her skin as it dried, her breath coming fast and close. There was a low, swelling roar behind them, and she whipped around to see to a gout of flame surge from her own window, popping like a balloon. Over the pounding in her ears, Asha blearily wondered if she could take off work today for having her life destroyed. Or was that more reason to work than ever? Maybe—
“Did someone call the fire department?” José interrupted, his panting muffled by his bandana.
“No,” Jason shook his head, his voice a thin rasp, taking Jaydan from the Mrs. Valasquez and cradling him in one arm while wrapping the other around his partner. “My phone was in the kitchen—”
“I’ve got it!” Asha squirmed free of the star-studded quilt and Mrs. Valasquez’s attention, her bare feet skidding on the damp grass. Viraj was hunched back in the carrier, she could just hear his deep, throaty growls as she pawed through her pile, searching for the rattail phone cord as her knees were instantly soaked. It took Asha four tries to unlock her phone, and two tries to dial 911 after she dropped it in the grass.
She only had wait for one ring. “911, what is your—”
“Fire!” Asha’s voice juddered out as a deep shiver wracked her body. “Our building at 411 – no, sorry – 413 Sunset Blvd.!”
“Ok ma’am, can you see any clear landmarks nearby?” the voice on the phone was controlled and feminine, her measured tone soothing and yet far too slow when you could see smoke boiling from your bedroom.
“Uh, I—” Asha cast her eyes wildly about. Viraj let out a piteous cry at her feet, José was sprinting around their building to where their cars were parked, the gray and orange silhouettes of her neighbors in the building diagonal to them were approaching, some with phones clamped to their ears, others with buckets, it smelled like a campfire in winter – wait, what if her car caught fire? What if it exploded? What if—
“Ma’am, do you see any clear landmarks?” the voice on the phone coaxed.
“Uh, yes, there’s—there’s a strip mall just to the east of us, Highland Meadows, I think?” A wave of heat lapped at her back, and Asha’s eyes stung as she turned to see glass explode outward from Jason and Jose’s living room.
“Very good, is anyone still inside?”
What if you left it inside?
Asha’s heart trembled in her chest – Oh my god, had she left it inside? She couldn’t have, she wouldn’t have, she remembered grabbing it before stumbling downstairs, she’d left it in the bedside table, or maybe the closet, the bedside closet—
“Stay with me ma’am, I know this is a lot – is anyone still inside?”
“N-no, no one—” Asha’s eyes dropped back to the collage of her life at her feet, all spread out before her. Coat, laptop, folder, Viraj—no fan. The one with the peacock feathers her grandmother had loved, the last gift she’d received from her before coming to this country. She’d forgotten it. Oh, madad, meree madad karo—
“And is this a good phone number if our call—”
“Jason!” Asha clambered to her feet and broke into a run, the woman’s voice dropping away as she shoved her phone into Jason’s hands. “Give her a number, keep talking!”
“What?” The startled father struggled not to let the phone slide from where she’d shoved it in among the blankets tucked around his son. “Asha, what’re you—Hello? Yes, you can call—er—342, 679…”
Asha, meanwhile, ran towards her door, ash flecking her skin with the delicacy of eiderdown. I can make it, I can make it. She bounded up the porch, avoiding the splintered stair and reaching for the screen door’s handle. Heat radiated from the blooming darkness and orange glow behind the black mesh, a gentle threat to peel back her flesh, her heart, her soul if only she came one step closer—
“No, cariño, no!” Warm, soft arms wrapped around Asha’s shoulders, hauling backwards – she tasted fabric in her mouth, dry and dusty as cloth blotted out her view of her front door. She stumbled, trying to push forward but felt her heel drop down a step, jamming her leg as it connected with the pavement behind her. Spitting, Asha dragged herself free of both arms and blanket—and saw stars. Patterned stars, white triangles forever shining with motes of paisley and denim over rolling corduroy.
Mrs. Valasquez pulled her quilt from Asha’s nerveless fingers and steadied the other woman, tucking the fabric around Asha’s shoulders. “Whatever it is, there will be more,” she croaked, her round face and pocked cheeks inches away. “Whatever is lost, will be again.”
Her chest heaving, Asha looked between the old woman’s craggy face, her flyaway strands of silver hair falling piecemeal from a heavy plastic clip, and the crumbling abode behind her. She shivered, and Mrs. Valasquez blurred into a ghostly haze of herself, the stars on the quilt around Asha’s shoulders fragmenting to slide down her cheeks.
In the distance, there were sirens, and the smoke from Asha’s home took flight.
