Smoke rose in suffocating columns, clogging the sky so completely that the sun turned its back on the earth. Slow burning steel wreckage choked the road, the only source of heat that melted the ice in the grimy, frozen landscape. Dingy snow wisped down from the heavens like exhausted moths. Charcoal trees creaked and leaned on each other like a rotten picket fence. Unearthed roots reached upwards like the clawed hands of the damned returning to life. But there was no life to be seen. “It’s almost dark. We haven’t found anything to eat and it’s almost dark.” “Mama, keep your words calm. There’s no reason to get upset. We’re safe from the wreckage. That’s what you always say to me.” The mother looked down at her daughter, a wan smile on her lips. “Thanks for reminding me, my love. I just don’t want you to be hungry.” “I’m okay. We ate yesterday. I don’t need to eat today.” The mother hugged her daughter, savouring the beating coil life that spiraled through the child. She put her hand into her coat pocket and pulled out a worn elastic. She gently pulled at her daughter’s knotted filthy, ash-blonde hair and tied a sloppy ponytail. She gripped a handful of her own sickly brown hair and hiccupped. Her cracked fingernails leered through the grubby split ends of her once splendid locks. She wiped a tear away and smiled at her daughter. “I’m sure we’ll find something to eat tomorrow. Can you walk a little farther to find a warm place to sleep?” “Yeah, I can keep walking. My feet don’t hurt much today.” Mother and daughter meandered through the wreckage, stopping briefly to warm their hands on a burning car. The cars burned and burned. For months the lands had burned until there was nothing left other than whispers and ashes of what had been. When the fire fell from the sky it had burned much of the world. Then for a time the fire stopped falling. Then it fell again in tiny droplets, burning the remaining cars and buildings and trees and whatever was left. Then the snow fell and it hadn’t stopped. The mother led her daughter off the icy road and into the waist deep snow. They trudged, raising their boots high over the drifts, stumbling and slipping and wheezing. They reached a crumbling structure that was more ash than concrete. A small corner of the building stood proudly over the soot and residue. The mother ducked under a rusted rebar and crunched over black snow. Her daughter reached for her hand and jumped through the scrawny threshold. “What do you think?” the mother asked. “In that spot there’s no snow and part of the roof is still covering the floor. There are even some boxes that didn’t catch fire. We can flatten them down and sleep on top of them.” “Yeah, I like it. Let’s sleep here. Can we rest all of tomorrow?” “Of course, we can rest tomorrow, too.” The mother opened a large, half rotten corrugated box and spread it on the frigid concrete. She flattened two other small boxes with her fist, one crunching as she struck it. She opened the box and found the remains of something once made of colourful glass. What had she destroyed? Someone’s memento? Maybe someone’s reminder of the old world had been hidden inside the box, and she had reduced it to wreckage. She shuddered and wondered when was the last time she felt safe. She wondered if life was worth fighting for. “Sometimes I wonder why we’re still alive.” “I don’t know mama, but it’s just like you keep saying to me. ‘Don’t worry, my love, we’ll be just fine’.” The daughter took her mother’s hand as she lay on the mildew-stained cardboard. She snuggled against her mother’s chest and closed her eyes. Her mother stroked her hair as she silently cried out her pretty lies. They would be just fine. *** Written with Dead Sara’s ‘Whispers and Ashes’ looping in the background.