5 - Fires

We started stretching finally. We did it because our feet hurt so much from walking everywhere, all the time, whenever we weren’t running. We’d make ourselves quipy shirts. We were industrious. We could cobble together almost anything. The standards were lower of course. It’s like we just discovered nails. I remember my brother calling to me from a balcony where we had a pretty sweet deal going. He had aluminum siding nailed all over the fucking place, his new answer to all our problems. He had knocked out all the windows to make room for it. There was broken glass everywhere and he had given a pretty mediocre effort to “sweeping” it off the ledge with his feet. “how sweet is this!” he calls to me. I had seen him do the whole thing but I look again anyway for effect. I nod and give him the thumbs up cradling our rifle so as not to lose my grip on the light post, then slide down and make my way through things, debris that has been misplaced so long now it is the new road of our age, the rubble, the ruin despite our trespass, our obsequious inheritance, it lays defying renewal though he stands there hammer and nails in hand, smiling, reinventing a lost world in the dark amnesia of a life that will never be found or lived again.

On a roof at night we’ll check out the other fires. Some nights there are only a few. Last night we counted fifteen. Trust never comes back.