Somber lights rise off endless days reaching past and over the shades of night. My wheels spin in a rut. If someone would mind getting out and giving me a push, I’d greatly appreciate it.

The tree flowered pink. Thomas checked the tree everyday for pinkness.

“I just heard. Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone is fine. But my stuff. None of my stuff is fine. I lost it all. My whole life was in there.”

By the time my neighbor Margie called, the fire department had finished their work. It would be another day before the building inspectors declared the remains of the house safe enough for me to pick through the rubble. I grew up in the house and had lived there for the past fifteen years, after inheriting it from my mother when she passed on.

It could have been worse. I could have been in the house when the fire started. The fire department told me that the fire spread so quickly, it was a good thing I wasn’t in the house. The fire followed the wiring in the house, burning in the walls under exploding out into the rooms almost simultaneously. That’s what they told me.