The sky was impossibly distant above her as she lay in the dry grass. Pale blue, like a bowl suspended, not a single cloud. She had created a small nook for herself--crushed the tall grass below her stomping, bare feet and now she was concealed, a small boat sunk in a golden, rustling sea.

She'd come here often after the fire, walking the dusty road from the neighbors', escaping the heavy silence in the guest room she was sharing with her aunt, the closed drapes and kleenex wads and untouched tea mugs. In retrospect, it seemed an odd choice, as it was this very same grass that had allowed the fire to spread so quickly, hungrily engulfing everything in its path, death and a blackened smoldering in its wake.

But the grass had grown back since that day, exactly three months ago.

Unlike so many other things, that disappear in an instant and are gone forever, like smoke dispersed in the wind.

The charred remains of the house still stood, as though perpetually against the backdrop of a setting sun, blackened to silhouette. If she sat up and turned east, she could see the roofline in the distance, leaning precariously, doomed to collapse when the winds picked up in early fall.

It had been a spring day, notable for its very ordinariness. She'd eaten her breakfast of yogurt on the front porch, swinging her feet off the edge, watching their shadows pass over the ground. It was quiet, a mild breeze stirring the yellowing grass, birds warbling in distant trees at the horizon. Her uncle had gone out to start the tractor a half hour or so before, and she could see him now, out in the field, bent over the engine. His red cap stood out like a beacon and he was dwarfed by distance and the rusting hood that hung open above him. Inside, her aunt bustled about, humming distractedly as she passed from room to room, pushing windows closed against the gathering heat.

As she turned to open the screen door, she heard a shout, and wheeled about to see a looming tower of black smoke hovering, then moving toward her over the field. Orange flames licked, rose, grew, reached and she could see nothing of the tractor or her uncle.

"Auntie!" she shrieked, and felt her voice strain against the roar in the air, in her ears.

She froze, paralyzed with panic. No answer from inside. She ran into the house, screen slamming roughly behind her, screamed. Couldn't stop. Heart in her throat, bursting. Her aunt on the stairs, eyes wide with fear. "Get outside, now!"

The porch, the field, the road. Air that burned, hot and singeing her throat. And the roaring that grew. Tears on her hot cheeks and rasping, ragged breaths as she ran as fast and as far as she could, and then farther.

Neighbors' voices, loud and then very quiet. The house, consumed, yellow paint melted, peeling, the brick chimney somehow bright, unscathed in the ruin. Distant sirens howled, too late.

Her uncle, vanished, the tractor a shrunken smoking skeleton. The ground black, the sky gray.

Her aunt, silent in the midst of comforting arms, her mouth slightly open, still carrying a dishtowel in one hand.