Rare Air
Part Fourteen
What do you grab? What do you search for or seek out when you know there is only precious seconds left to say goodbye to all of the things you call yours unless you plan to perish with them?
Clothes? Well sure, especially when you live near the top of a mountain in the snow. Your best coat comes to mind, sturdy shoes are obvious. You’re already out of food and nearly out of water but you’re all alone and above the ice melt, you would grab what you had, water at least? Right?
After that, a light source maybe? Its pitch dark and cold as a well digger’s ass outside after all. A weapon of some kind, surely to hunt with, to use against dangers for certain. Rope, that ever loving first aid kit. Anything that would help you survive the coming hours or days.
I woke up to the wall nearest my head already fully engulfed in flame. Once you get past the lichen and vines the whole place was a tinder box just waiting to ignite. Hell, I’m surprised I didn’t set a similar fire from the inside out with all the times I left a log burning in that decrepit stove or fell asleep by the light of a still burning emergency candle.
I woke up in a panic, pushing away from the old couch and the musty blankets. I woke up and quickly realized that I was as good as dead. One entire wall was already in flames, I could see a whole in the roof already where the flames had caught and burned through. I didn’t grab for my spare clothes, or my boots. I didn’t run into the tiny kitchen toward the still smoldering wood stove for my knife. I didn’t grab the half empty first aid kit or the last reused plastic water bottle I had full of melted snow.
I grabbed my favorite knit blanket. I grabbed the photo ID’s of my dead friends. I grabbed Jerry, the fucking safety log with the pinched face carved into it. Only as a passing fancy did I think to stop by the creaking door and grab for my boots. I stopped long enough to put those boots on and apologize, profusely, to the creaking door because there was nothing that I could do to save her.
I didn’t worry about warmth that night, or water the next day. I stood out in the snow with the blanket wrapped around me. I watched my disgusting palace burn and lamented over all the things I never thought to grab as the roof fell in and the walls all caught fire.