ALONE

I was ten minutes from home as a speeding black van with dark tinted windows almost ran me off the road. “Fuck you!” As I extended my finger over the rag top and kept it extended until they vanished from my mirror. Smoke rolled across the road as I got home. Everyone was in the trees, and Jesus was spraying water on the trees, trying to keep the fire from spreading. I jumped from the VW and ran to Jesus. “Where is Jade? Where is Jade!” as I ran toward the house. Sol screamed at me, “Jackson!” as the heat knocked me backward, and I crawled from the flames. “Jade! . . . Jade!” Sol and Carlos grabbed me and dragged me into the trees and squirted water on my smoldering shirt. “Jackson! Jade was in the house. I don’t know what happened. I heard an explosion, and by the time I ran over here, it was completely engulfed. I have never seen anything burn so fast.” “Jade!” as I dropped to the ground in tears. The fire burned for two days as we all worked to keep it from spreading. I kept looking into the flames like I expected her to walk out at any moment. I went out to the boat and went below. I could still smell Jade’s smell on the sheets. I cried myself to sleep. The next day, I poked through the ashes and debris. I found nothing. Even the metal beams were melted and warped. I drank all day as I stared at the . . . house. “Jackson! . . . Jackson!” I heard Sol’s voice. “Wake up!” as he pulled my face out of the sand. “You have company.” And I looked at a man holding his hand out toward me. He pulled me up off the ground. “We need to put this to rest,” he said consolingly. “I am the minister at Sol’s church. I am also a bulldozer operator. We need to bury this memory so you can continue your life.” He hugged me as the tears ran down my cheeks. I looked at the dozer that his son was getting off his trailer, and I shook my head in agreement. As I stood against a mahogany tree and watched, he dug a hole about the size of a box truck. He pushed the entire remains of my home into the hole, and his son poured diesel fuel over the debris in the pit. He handed me a paper and lit it and walked away. I threw the flame into the pit and watched the flames remove the remaining parts of my life. It burned overnight, and he came back in the morning and pushed the sand over the ashes and regraded the property. It looked like it was never there, as he loaded the dozer back on the trailer and left. I lay down on the fresh sand, feeling Jade’s presence with the earth. I have never felt so alone!