A Tale of Two Fires, by Ron Cole
It's on fire. I remember hearing that, and I remember a moment of time standing still. A paralysis came over me. As I try to relive that moment, I still quiver in spite of the time passed. A moment when everything I had ever known was about to pass away, people, things, hopes and dreams, to be replaced by something else; something dark, sinister, and unknowable. If I had been able to foresee the rest of that one day - say nothing of the rest of my life - would I have been able to keep living beyond the ensuing hour and a half? Since ignorance is such good friends with bliss, and because I foresaw nothing but a blur, I kept on living. What began with a fire became worse, darker, and evil. When the world collectively decides to blame you for a fire that consumed not just a building, but 76 people, including 25 children, there is no healing process that begins in the aftermath for anybody. Plane crash survivors enjoy that sort of thing. Not us, and I was there in the middle of it all