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The snow hit like the cosmic fist of a god who’d long since stopped caring, pelting her beat-up sedan with all the fury of a hangover that won’t quit. I was gunning it up the Donner Pass with the kind of reckless abandon you can only summon after spending weeks swimming in cheap whiskey, greasy chicken strips, and coffee that was practically begging for a tossing out the window.

It wasn’t just any trip. It was a pilgrimage to the deep heart of hell, where family came to chew you up and spit you out.

The tires hummed on the wet freeway, a low, soothing purr mixed with the kind of ominous hum that signals something far worse than a flat tire is coming your way. I cranked the heat to maximum, setting the car’s vents to groan under the strain, filling the air with the stench of overworked antifreeze and the faint aroma of soggy fries.

I wasn’t expecting a smooth ride. Life hadn’t given me a smooth ride since–well, ever.

No, this was survival. It was a Christmas special, or maybe a damn horror show, but there was no turning back.

It had been over four years since I’d seen my brother, and thinking about him made my stomach lurch like the worst tequila shot you’ve ever taken. The man’s face—the sharp lines, the smugness, the way he acted like he could run over you and send you a note demanding a thank you for the privilege–still haunted me like some filthy ghost with a penchant for ruining holidays.

The radio blasted my favorite Christmas song, a sad, syrupy ballad about redemption and love and all that sugar-coated bullshit. My eyes pricked, and for a second, I wondered if I was going soft–right there–behind the wheel, miles from nowhere, frozen out of my mind with the heat cranked up too high.

Hell no, I thought, cranking it up louder. It wasn’t about Christmas.

It wasn’t about redemption. It was about surviving the madness.

It was a battle for my sanity, and I didn’t know if I was winning or losing. And then the lights.

At first, they were just red and white dots in the snow, a half-hearted attempt at some twisted holiday lights display. But rounding the bend, that all-too-familiar gut-clenching sensation hit—this wasn’t a Christmas card–it was a fucking war zone.

Dozens of cars mangled together, twisted at impossible angles, a jumbled mass of metal and despair, mayhem and destruction. Headlights slice the darkness, reflecting off ice and snow like a bad dream.

People were everywhere, darting around like rats in some unholy experiment–screaming, running, and sliding on the ice. What the hell? I slammed the brakes, but the tires didn’t respond. They skidded, screamed, and jerked, but the damn thing wasn’t stopping.

A massive SUV sat sideways, looking like it had been through a meat grinder, its roof caved in like a crushed soda can. A woman in a puffy jacket was waving her arms like some goddamn windmill, her lips moving in silent screams that weren’t making it through the snow. A sedan smashed against a guardrail, steam billowing from under its hood like some weird fog machine at a rock concert.

No time to stop. No time to think.

Gritted teeth and gripping the wheel like it was a last chance to escape the insanity, I veered left, right, slalomed through the wreckage, barely missing bodies, barely missing cars, barely keeping my shit together. Every turn was an act of blind, reckless defiance against the universe.

A man appeared ahead of me, stumbling out of the snow, his face a ghostly reflection in her headlights. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t brake. I swerved hard, and the bastard fell backward onto the shoulder right as I gunned the car between two twisted heaps of metal.

Then, just as fast as it started, it was over. Coasting to a stop, hands gripped the wheel tightly, knuckles white as if I were holding onto the last shred of sanity in the cosmos. Behind me lay a wreckage of shattered glass, crumpled steel, and broken lives, slowly being consumed by the falling snow.

Blue and red lights flashed in the distance. The highway patrol moved like molasses in the snowstorm, the sirens distant but steady. Pulse racing, something deep inside told me it wasn’t the end of the story. I should’ve driven away, let the past and the wreckage disappear into the night. But for some reason, I couldn’t.

Maybe it was the desperate way the woman in the puffy jacket waved her arms. Perhaps it was the man, wide-eyed and terrified. No, I wasn’t leaving just yet.

I pulled into the nearest rest area, an ugly concrete building with flickering lights and vending machines full of overpriced snacks. I shut off the engine, sat there, and stared at my reflection in the rearview. A face I didn’t recognize. A soul I didn’t understand.

It was supposed to be a Christmas drive. A cozy little family reunion. Instead, I had a front-row seat to the most fucked-up holiday parade the universe could throw at her. But hell, I didn’t come all this way to turn around.

I buttoned up my coat against the biting wind and stalked toward the neon glow of the vending machines, where I fed in a dollar bill. No sooner than I had done that, I found myself thinking, “No wonder the Donner Party ate each other.”

The bag of chips hung in the balance between the glass and the corkscrew they came from. I thought of shaking the son-of-a-bitch, but I was too damned tired, and besides, my ‘give-a-damn’ was broke.

The next time, if there were ever a next time, I would take the fucking Greyhound.

You shake the box again, feeling the weight shift inside. It’s slight, almost nothing, but enough to hold your attention. You think of the possibilities—something small, perhaps something useful.

Perhaps a pencil to scribble a note or mark a path. The thought of it makes you oddly hopeful, like how small things do when the world has lost shape.

Or maybe it’s a clue. Yes, it could be a clue, something clever and necessary, something that will guide you further. This hope galvanizes you, making your fingers quicker as you tug at the lid, eager to expose the secret.

The box opens. And there is nothing inside.

You stare, then frown, the weight of the cardboard still lingering in your hands. You shake it again, ears straining for the sound and that faint knocking that drew you to this moment.

A quick tilt, a sharper shake—and then you feel it. Not the contents, but the box itself, the way the inner flap of the lid knocks against the sides as though mocking your expectation.

Ah.

It comes to you then–the kind of realization that sits cold and steady in your chest: this is what a twist ought to be. Not some fantastical leap from outside the frame but something born from the thing itself, its nature folded inward like a snake eating its tail.

Infuriating. Inescapable.

You laugh, sharp and low, at yourself and the world, at how quickly belief fills a space with meaning. You hadn’t even known what you expected—only that the box should contain something.

And so, of course, it contains nothing at all.

The weight you felt wasn’t false. The sound, imagined. It was the box, being true to itself, and that truth was empty from the start.

The Nevada desert was as still as a forgotten land. It stretched under the morning sun, a palette of ochre and rust, with mountains layered in blue along the distant horizon.

The wind drifted by, lazily rolling tumbleweeds like they were aimless wanderers. Tom Hastings was sitting atop his horse, watching them as he cleared the old corral, removing the dead shrubs one by one.

He was about to toss another one out when he noticed a flash of color—red, tied around a tangle of tumbleweeds. He stopped, eyes narrowing, and reached down, pulling the clump closer.

Six yellowed notes, each tied by a weathered red ribbon, lay hidden in the brush. The paper was soft from the elements, and the ink faded but readable.

Tom’s brow furrowed as he unfolded the first, recognizing the handwriting before the name. Clara Garson.

He hadn’t heard that name in years, but seeing it took him back to those California forests and the girl with green eyes and a quiet smile. She’d had a way of looking at things, of seeing into him like she was reading his thoughts back then.

“Garson” was written on the top note, and “Breaker Ridge” was scrawled on another. Tom took a long breath, gazing out toward the ridge in the distance.

The desert had a way of bringing things back, of making a man think about what he tried to leave behind. Tom stuffed the notes into his jacket, gave the ribbon one last look, and decided to take the ride.

It wasn’t every day the desert delivered a message.

Tom had ridden far, the Nevada heat beating down on him and the cold air settling around him at night. When he finally reached Clara’s place, he saw a small cabin tucked beneath the shadow of Breaker Ridge. It was a plain, lonely structure, its walls weathered by years of dust and wind.

Dismounting, he tied his horse to the hitching post, dusted off his hat, and approached the cabin. Just as he raised his hand to knock, the door swung open.

Clara stood there, looking like she’d aged a lifetime. Her hair was streaked gray, and there was a hardness in her eyes he didn’t remember.

She studied him for a long moment, her mouth a thin line, arms crossed.
“Didn’t expect to see you again, Tom Hastings. What brings you to this side of nowhere?” Her voice clipped, guarded, and he wondered how much bitterness life had dealt her.

Tom held up the bundle of notes, showing her the red ribbon. “Found these in my corral,” he said. “Thought they deserved to be returned to their owner.”

Clara’s gaze flicked down to the notes, and for a second, something in her eyes softened, then vanished. She reached out, took them without a word, and slipped them into her pocket like they were no more than scraps.

He waited, watching her, feeling the weight of the years between them settle in the quiet.

“Didn’t figure you for the type to chase down a few stray tumbleweeds,” she said, glancing away, her tone as sharp as the desert’s edge.

“Sometimes the wind brings things that are meant to find you, Clara,” he replied. “And sometimes they lead you back to what you thought was gone.”

She gave a short laugh, hollow, like a door banging in an empty room. “Is that what this is? The wind and fate?”

Tom shrugged, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Something like that.” He looked out over the desert, past the ridge to the horizon, feeling the distance between them grow wider. “Didn’t know if you’d even want them back.”

She turned her face away, the shadows from the ridge falling across her cheek. “Maybe I did, once,” she muttered. Then, her voice hardening, she added, “But that was long ago.”

Tom decided to set up camp nearby. He could’ve turned back, but something unspoken held him from going. That night, Tom lit a small fire just far enough from Clara’s cabin to respect the distance but close enough that he could see her place silhouetted against the starlit sky.

The desert was quiet, save for the occasional rustle of brush or the soft sigh of the wind, carrying with it the scent of sage. Tom poked at the fire, watching the flames flicker, remembering those forest shadows that had hidden so many memories.

He hadn’t heard her approach, but when he looked up, there she was, arms wrapped around herself, standing just outside the glow of the firelight. She looked at him, a mixture of uncertainty and something he couldn’t name.

“Mind if I sit?” Her voice was softer now, cautious.

Tom motioned to a spot across the fire. “Suit yourself.”

She eased herself down, folding her legs and resting her hands in her lap. Neither of them said a word, just stared into the flames. Finally, she broke the silence.

“I thought you’d forgotten about this place,” she said, her tone laced with a hint of accusation.

He didn’t look at her, just kept his gaze on the fire. “Can’t forget where a man finds peace, Clara. Thought you of all people would understand that.”
She snorted a bitter sound. “Peace. I don’t remember much of that around here.”

“Guess it’s how you see it,” Tom replied, glancing up at her. “The desert has a way of bringing things back, sometimes even things we don’t want.”

Her eyes met his, and he saw the flicker of old pain there. “You left, Tom,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I had to learn how to let things go.”

He sighed, rubbing a calloused hand over his jaw. “I left, yeah. But I didn’t forget, Clara. Not everything is something a man can choose to carry with him.”

She looked down, her fingers tracing patterns in the sand. “I always wondered why you left without a word.”

There it was, the question hanging between them all those years. Tom thought back to his reasons, the need for silence and solitude after the things he’d seen, the scars that didn’t show on his skin but etched into his mind.

“I had my reasons,” he said quietly. “But maybe they don’t mean much now. Sometimes you leave to heal. Sometimes you stay and forget how to return.”

Clara looked away, her jaw tight. “Guess we both did some forgetting,” she murmured.

They sat silent, the fire crackling between them, the words they hadn’t said building like a wall. Tom watched the flames dance, remembering how they would sit under the redwoods, sharing sketches and trading quiet words. Clara had been lighthearted then, a young girl with dreams and an artist’s eye.

But this Clara—she was different. Hard. He could see the lines etched on her face, her shoulders hunched as if she was bracing against the world. And he knew some of it was because of him.

“What was it you wanted, Clara?” he asked finally, looking at her through the smoke. “With the notes, the tumbleweeds, all of it?”

She lifted her gaze, her green eyes steady, though there was a glimmer of something else there. “I was just trying to hold onto something real,” she said softly. “I read it in an old dime novel. Thought the idea foolish, but I wanted to see if words could still reach someone after so long.”

Tom’s mouth quirked up in a sad smile. “Well, they reached me. More than you know.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the notes, smoothing the creased paper and handing them to Tom.

“‘Breaker Ridge,’” he read aloud, his voice barely a whisper. “And here we are.”

Clara glanced down at the notes he held between his finger and thumb, then back up at him. “You didn’t have to come,” she said, though her tone was less sure than before.

“Maybe I didn’t,” Tom replied, his voice low. “But something brought me here anyway.”

They were quiet again, and the fire crackled between them, casting long shadows that stretched forever. Tom wanted to reach across the space between them, to bridge the gap that had grown too wide over the years. But he held back, letting the silence do the talking.

After a long moment, Clara rose, brushing the dust from her skirt. She looked down at him, her face softened, the hardness slipping away for just a moment.

“Goodnight, Tom,” she murmured.

“Goodnight, Clara.”

She turned, and as she walked back to her cabin, he watched her go, feeling the weight of things unsaid settle in his chest. The desert was quiet once more, the fire’s glow fading as he leaned back, closing his eyes against the stars. The years had changed them both, but some things, like the land, the silence, and perhaps something between held.

The sun rose, casting long shadows across the desert, when Tom knocked on Clara’s door that morning. She opened it with a tired expression, her green eyes meeting his without a hint of surprise.

“I’m heading out,” he said.

She nodded, her lips pressed together as if holding back words. “It’s probably best,” she said, her tone hollow.

He hesitated, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the remaining notes tied in that red ribbon. He held them out. “I think you need these more than I do.”

Clara looked down at the notes, then back up at him, her eyes glistening with something she’d never show openly. She took them, her fingers brushing against his, and momentarily, everything seemed to stop. There was no desert, no mountains, no years of silence. Just the two of them, like it had been back in the California woods.

“Goodbye, Clara,” he said, his voice rough.

“Goodbye, Tom,” she whispered, her hand closing over the ribbon. He turned, walking back to his horse, feeling her eyes on his back until he mounted up and rode away, the dust rising around him.

As he rode off into the vastness of the Nevada desert, he wondered if he’d done the right thing. But maybe there was no right or wrong anymore, just the choices they’d made and the lives they’d built in the spaces between.

Clara had her notes, memories, and the shadow of Breaker Ridge. And Tom had the road, the quiet, and whatever peace he could find in the wide-open spaces.

And as the desert stretched before him, he felt a weight lift, a burden he’d carried since he left that California forest so long ago. There were things he’d never have, things he’d never say, but for the first time in a while, he could breathe free.

And for a man like Tom Hastings, that was enough.

His shop, tucked away on a street that didn’t have a name, was the kind you only found when you weren’t looking for it. Inside, the air was a labyrinth of smells—soft lilac curling into the sharper bite of pine resin, the warmth of vanilla shot through with the bitter tang of coffee grounds.

But it wasn’t perfumes people came for. Not really.

The customers were young women. They came in with their strange requests, eyes wide, voices trembling like the strings of a barely-tuned violin. He listened, patient as always, as they described the things they wanted to carry in tiny, glass-bottled memories.

“Can you do the scent of my baby’s neck?” one asked, voice breaking on the last word. “That sweet, milky smell, right here.”

She touched her clavicle like it was a sacred thing, her fingers trembling.

Another wanted Marlboro Reds in a 200 mL bottle. “So I can smell them after I quit,” she explained, her laugh sharp and humorless.

And there were darker requests. The sour, suffocating air of a nursing home, the air dense in disinfectant and despair. Garbage baking under a pitiless summer sun.

One asked for the scent of her boyfriend, that cinnamony ticklishness where her shoulder met her neck. She smiled when she said it, but her eyes were hollow.

Diesel. Sweat. Burning foliage. The copper tang of blood. He had heard it all before, but he never turned them away.

And then there was the woman who asked for mushroom risotto. She told him about the last dinner she had cooked for her husband, the one who had fallen in love with the dog-walker.

Her voice cracked as she said the Shiitake slices looked like decapitated ears floating in the rice. She cried as she talked and did not stop.

He nodded and wrote it all down, never asking why. That was not his job.

His job was to distill their stories into scents, to trap their heartbreak and longing in delicate bottles they could hold in their hands. He did not want to know what they did with them after that.

It was a chilled night in Virginia City as the four of us stumbled out of the Old Corner Bar on B Street, riding the warm buzz of good drinks and laughter that echoed off the brick walls. The drinking lamp cast long, sharp shadows on the asphalt in front of us, and one of the gals, giddy from the night, piped up.

“Hey, let’s do Y-M-C-A, like the song!”

Grinning, we lined up four abreast and took our positions, each forming a letter. I held my arms high in a Y, feeling silly but enjoying its ridiculousness.

Then I noticed it. An extra shadow on the ground, stretching out beside ours—a fifth figure. I squinted, looking over my shoulder and past the others as they laughed, oblivious.

The laughter faded one by one as each of them caught sight of the extra shadow, and an odd silence fell over us. We glanced at each other, no one daring to speak, as though words would make it too real.

The fifth shadow suddenly moved, throwing its arms up like it was frustrated with us. Then, without a sound, it turned sharply and stomped off into the surrounding darkness, leaving us standing, staring after it.

We looked down the sidewalk in the direction it had gone, and there was nothing, just the usual empty street. Only our four shadows remained.

“What…was that?” one of the gals whispered, her voice barely more than a breath.

No one had an answer.

We lingered there, observing the shadows on the ground, waiting for anything to explain it. But the street was empty, silent as if it had always been.

Phones across Northern California buzzed with the urgent message: “A series of powerful waves and strong currents may impact coasts near you. You are in danger. Get away from coastal waters. Move to high ground or inland now.”

The alert came after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Northern California on Thursday, December 5 at 10:44 a.m., west of Ferndale, in Humboldt County, where residents experienced several seconds of rolling motion followed by smaller aftershocks and felt as far south as San Francisco.

The tsunami warning, issued by the National Weather Service, affected over 5.3 million people, with more than 1.3 million estimated to be in the immediate vicinity. The U.S. Geological Survey issued a yellow alert predicting localized but minimal damage from the shaker.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. It is one of the most powerful upheavals to hit California since a 7.1-magnitude hit Ridgecrest in 2019. Authorities have since lifted the tsunami warning.

My husband is hoarding the lightbulbs. Not just any lightbulbs—our lightbulbs. The good ones. The ones that made the whole house glow like noon on a spring day.

He’d spent weeks replacing the old greenish incandescents, muttering about how they were terrible for your eyes, how they made the place feel like a tomb. Now, he’s packing them up. Carefully. Tenderly. Each one swaddled in paper towels like they’re fragile treasures, like they mean more to him than the rest.

“They’re going to Montana with me,” he said like that explained anything.

He put the incandescents back, of course. He’s not cruel enough to leave me in the dark. Just cruel enough to leave me in that light—the sickly green haze that turns white walls into something lunar, sterile, and strange. It’s the kind of light that makes you see things out of the corner of your eye–things not there or shouldn’t be.

While he packs, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. The shadows cast are unfamiliar, sharp-edged, moving when nothing in the room should be. I want to tell him to stop, put things back, to stay. But I know he won’t.

He’s not just taking the lightbulbs; he’s taking the home. All left for me is this house, the strange green glow, and the cratered shadows above.

The walls close tighter every night, the light bulbs humming softly in their sockets, laughing at me.

The sun was slipping behind the craggy Nevada hills, casting the land in shades of gold and violet, when Gus Turner, an old cowboy with a face as worn as the leather in his saddle, set up camp for the night. Dusty, his trusty chestnut with a bold white blaze, stood nearby, steady and watchful. The horse’s dark eyes glinted with the reflection of the fire Gus coaxed into life, embers crackling as night closed in.

Dusty had been Gus’s partner for over a decade, a bond as solid as the land they rode. Gus didn’t need to tell him much—Dusty knew his ways, knew the plains and hills, to keep watch over the camp as Gus got the fire going.

Gus leaned against his saddle and tipped his hat low as the flames grew. “Ain’t nothing like a fire under an open sky, is there, Dusty?”

The horse pricked his ears and shifted his weight as if to answer. He kept standing, alert, one hind leg cocked in a half-rest but ready for whatever came.

The stars blinked into view, clear and sharper here than anywhere Gus had ever ridden. The quiet was deep, a hush only found in places of more land than people. And though Gus had spent a lifetime embracing solitude, there was something rare about this night—how the air carried the scents of sage and dry grass, and the fire cast long shadows across the open land.

Dusty nickered, stepping a little closer, and Gus chuckled, reaching into his saddlebag. “All right, fella, I didn’t forget you.”

He pulled out a handful of oats, saved from the last town they’d passed. Dusty’s warm breath ruffled Gus’s fingers as he took the treat, chewing in that contented way Gus knew.

Running a calloused hand down Dusty’s neck, Gus felt a surge of gratitude for this horse who had carried him over trails, through rough weather, and across rivers with currents strong enough to take a man down. They’d been through storms together, seen the heat and dust of summer, the snows of a late winter. The horse was more than a companion—he was a partner, and out here, that meant everything.

The fire cast flickering shadows, and Gus began humming a tune, an old trail song he’d picked up years back. It was a slow, easy melody, the kind of tune a man hums when he’s nowhere to be and all night to get there.

The sound drifted over the range, blending with the wind that rustled the prairie grass. Dusty’s ears flicked to the rhythm, his body leaning closer as if he, too, found comfort in the sound.

When the fire settled to a soft glow, Gus stretched out on his bedroll, his saddle under his head and his hat tipped low. Dusty stood nearby, head lowered but ears sharp, like a good trail horse does—keeping one eye on his rider, the other on the land around him.

“Goodnight, old boy,” Gus murmured, his words soft and low. Dusty shifted his weight, snorting as if to say he’d keep an eye on things.

And as he drifted off, he knew that whatever lay ahead, they’d face it together, just a cowboy and his horse, as it had been from the start.

The media bastards, all of them, they think they’re untouchable. Gods of the heap. Rulers of the goddamn pile. They sip their overpriced cocktails in their tight suits and designer dresses, patting themselves on the back for feeding the masses another pile of sanitized, pre-approved horseshit. They tell themselves they’re King of the Hill, but the truth is, the hill they’re on is propaganda bullshit. A heap of lies, half-truths, and ass-kissing so deep it’d choke a sewer rat.

And let me tell you something about the heap—they can’t even smell it anymore. All that money, all those lights and cameras, they’ve dulled their senses. They’re too busy stuffing their faces at awards banquets, laughing too hard at each other’s bad jokes, and clinking glasses to toast their bullshit. They’ve forgotten what the world smells like, that the truth doesn’t come from press rooms or cocktail parties. It doesn’t wear a tuxedo or smile for the camera.

The truth lives down here, below their shiny, stinking mountain. It lives in the mud and the muck, buried so deep in the shit of real life you have to crawl through it to find it. Sweat sticks to your skin, and your knuckles bleed from digging too hard. In this place, people are raw, ugly, and honest because they lack the time or energy to pretend.

And me? I’ve got no time for their heap. I’ve got my shovel: the pen, the pad, the notepad. That’s my holy trinity. That’s how I dig through the filth, turning over the rotten carcass of the world to find the wriggling truth underneath. It’s not glamorous. It doesn’t win awards. It doesn’t get you a standing ovation or a goddamn seat at the table.

I’ve spent most of my life knee-deep in the fight—battling the lies, the propaganda, the endless cycle of destruction these slick-talking bastards call “progress.” Not many noticed. Hell, most of them didn’t want to notice. They’d rather keep their blinders on, swallowing the bullshit whole because it’s easier that way. It’s easier to nod along and play their little games than to admit the whole thing’s a rigged carnival.

And the ones who did notice? Oh, they tried like hell to shut me up. They hate me for daring to crack open their glossy lies and shine a light on the maggots wriggling underneath. I didn’t fit their narrative. I didn’t play by their rules. And the truth? It scared the hell out of them. Because their version of honesty was as hollow as their goddamn promises.

I wasn’t out to make friends or win their approval. I clawed through the grime, desperate to unearth the truth, without giving a good goddamn what they wanted to hear. And they didn’t. They never do.

But it’s real. It’s hard, mean, and brutal, and that’s all that matters. They can keep their hill. They can keep their sweet-smelling lies and their silver tongues. I’ll take the dirt. I’ll take the blood, the sweat, the stink of life. Because down here, in the shit and the chaos, that’s where the truth is born. Not on their goddamn hill. Not on their heap of lies.

Down here, the truth is fucking ugly, just like them.

It’s not the end of the world. Not yet. Fallout drifts like dead leaves, settling on roofs in the housing plan where the old mines have slept for years.

The firestorms and shockwaves came and went, leaving survivors who don’t know what they’re surviving for. The houses, proud once, lean now, cinderblock corners giving way like a boxer after the last hit, crumbling slow but sure.

It’s not the end.

Not cancer, either. Though the kids in these houses cough at night, and their parents don’t talk about it, the mortgage bills keep arriving, outliving some of the people who signed them.

No, it’s my father in the fire hall, where the air is hot, dry, brimming with talk. Neighbors huddle like sheep in a too-small pen. He sits in the corner, a map spread before him. His street is there, bold and thick-lined. Too bold. Too thick. It looks to him like a river cutting through the mess.

On the closed-circuit screen, the news runs endless loops. Atomic winter and fire, more things broken than anyone can count. I watch him when he leaves to walk the hallway at home. He tilts subtly at first, his body leaning like a roof beginning to sag. He measures the slope with his steps but doesn’t say what he knows.

It’s not the end of the world. But it feels like it could be.