Now my eyes hurt.
And I can’t breathe.
I can’t see through the smoke and it hurts my throat.
“Mama!” I call but she doesn’t answer. I try to find her, but the blackness filling the house is so thick I can’t even see my hand. Loud ringing hurts my ears. I try to search in the kitchen but there is too much blackness.
It’s so hot I’m sweating and my skin is itchy. The smoke fades a bit as I reach the living room. I can see the chair where Mama usually sits. Her hand is hanging off the side. I tug on it, but she won’t budge.
“Mama we have to go!” She doesn’t respond. I tug harder and harder but she’s too heavy. More black fills the house. I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m going to fall asleep. “Mama!” Still nothing. I tug and I tug but she won’t respond.
I fall to the ground, feeling like I’m gonna throw up, still holding her hand. A burst of light hits me in my already sore eyes. Two big men shadow the doorway. Before I can think, one of the shadows runs into the room and grabs me. I try to hold on to Mama, but he pulls me away.
“Mama!” I yell, trying to grab at her. The man throws me over his shoulder, taking me through our doorway. I’m helpless as I watch smoke cover Mama like an unwanted blanket. The last thing I see of her is the black smoke engulfing her hand.
Lying among the smoke about to end, I couldn’t help but remember my beginning. As the smoke filled my lungs, the smell of popcorn wafted into my brain. I remembered trying to rouse Mama from her death. I remembered pulling on her limp, lifeless body as black smoke filled the house. I remembered thinking I was going to die at the ripe old age of four.
I remembered the firefighters breaking into the house. I remembered screaming bloody murder as they pulled me out of the collapsing shack we called a home. I remembered thinking desperately that we had popcorn cooking, and if we didn’t salvage it, I wouldn’t eat for a month.
I remembered not wanting to leave her. Even now with the knowledge I had, knowing she was a shitstain on humanity, nothing but a meth-addicted waste of life, I still felt the way that little boy had. Love is funny that way, I guess.
I remembered how Lenny used to think I lied to her.
About everything.
About my past.
About my present.
About who I was.
The thing was, I wasn’t lying. You can’t lie if you don’t know you’re doing it. Sure, okay, some of that’s shit. I lied about a lot of things, but not everything. The point was, I repressed so much of it, I didn’t even realize I was lying. It just wasn’t there.
I’d heard stories of soldiers who came back from the war. To them trees were skeletons, fans were choppers, and kids playing in the street were potential suicide bombers. They were always fighting, the bombs still going off in their head. I knew I wasn’t the same.
I left the war early, then continued to fight for something else, someone I couldn’t even pretend was noble. So I shoved my bombs away in a neat little box and put that box somewhere where no one would find it, not even me.
Maybe if I’d let the bombs go off, the fire would have stayed inside my head.
Smoke curled above me, fire burned behind. From fire to fire, it would be a fitting end, a cleansing end. The world really needed to be cleansed of someone like me. I closed my eyes, then I heard something that curdled my blood.
“Vic?”
“Lenny?” I called back, hoping I was near death and hallucinating.
“Vic, where are you?” she answered, her voice sounding closer.
“Lenny get the fuck out of here, the building is about to collapse.” I waited, holding my breath, but not for fear of smoke inhalation. When there was no response I breathed, or at least did the best I could with the blackening air.
“There you are!” I shot up at her voice and immediately regretted the action. Groaning, I told Lenny to leave again.
“I’m not leaving without you. For some reason the fire department won’t listen to me. They think that no one is in here, but I knew better.” I nearly scoffed at Lenny’s observation. Of course GEM had bribed the fire department into leaving me to die. The firefighters probably had no idea I was in here. The order probably came from so high up they wouldn’t have thought to second-guess it.
Lenny sidled up next to me. She put her hands on my body and started feeling for injuries. I tried to push her off but I was sick with smoke. The gunshot didn’t feel that great, either.
“I can’t see for shit in this smoke.” Lenny coughed, feeling along my abs. When she reached my legs, I knew it was only a matter of seconds until she found the wound.
“So get out,” I said, trying to urge her away. “I’m the one who gave you that black eye, remember?”