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13
Le Feu
Lying on the grass, choking on the smoke as I watch my home burn, along with
everything I care about. Rain and tears mixing in a sad trickle of death and despair.
Everything gone, burnt to ashes in a fire of my own making. Daniel is in there.
Daniel with clear blue eyes that will never wink again. Daniel with a heart that
will never beat again. Daniel with arms that will never hug again. Daniel who is
now a ‘was’ not an ‘is’. Because of me. I do not feel the agony of burnt skin, scorched
muscles or broken bones as I reach out. I am a hollow doll now, with nothing left
to live for. I reach for a lonely straw hat, only slightly singed, lying at the edge of
the rubble. This is me now, slightly charred while everything I know and love lies
smouldering in ruins. The straw hat and I are the only things of Daniel’s left. I
clutch it to my chest as I sink into darkness. We are both broken survivors of the
train wreck that is my life.
‘
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