Fire

One night, long into January and long into the night's darkness, a young girl sat upright in her twin bed. Her pink telephone slept on the bedside table, and her stuffed bears and kitties slumbered in their places, shoved under pillows and sprawling on the floor. But this little wisp of a girl could not bring herself to sleep, having beckoned the Sandman, having had two tall glasses of warm milk, but to no avail. Her flannel nightgown bunched up around her thighs as she slumped against her pillows, her little girl hands wringing themselves in worry. But what does such a little child have to worry over? Tears welled in her eyes, and she wanted to go and  crawl into bed with her mother and father, but she knew they were sleeping. She oughtn't bother them, and she knew this, but this thin bed wasn't right. This wallpaper was all wrong, the roses wound the wrong way, and this kitty's fur was orange, not grey. The pillows were stiff and ugly and her night gown itched at her belly. All of this was wrong and so she began to cry in earnest, her little limbs shaking and hunched. 

And so this little girl had much to cry about. Her little bedroom was not really her own, only the charred pink telephone and the shredded baby blanket at her feet belong to this child. She wept with bitter tears and a living nightmare of bright flames licking up her beautiful white house. Nights ago, how many she could not count, she woke with a choking smell blanketing her lungs and stinging at her squinting eyes. In school each year they taught the children how to escape from a burning house, but how can a sleepy child know for sure that this is real life, this is a real fire burning down her wallpaper? She yelled for her mother, her father, coughing and sputtering with smoke. But her legs were frozen in place, she dare not move, what if this was a test? She thought maybe this was all fake, like on television. Soon she coughed to much to yell for help, and fell into a smoky sleep. 

But no sooner had the girl tumbled into a hellish nightmare, than a real one woke her up. A masked man, with a glaring visor scooped her up, as she screamed and struggled. What was happening to her? She kicked the strange creature in the chest and was dropped back onto the bed, where she scrambled to hide underneath her tattered old blanket. 

This fireman picked up the now hooded child and carried her out onto the lawn where she was discovered to have once again succumbed to a haze-induced sleep. She awoke with tubes in her mouth and a thin clear line running out of her arm into a baggy of liquid above her head. White, white. All the walls and all the sheets, all the nurses around her head, the golden aura of light. This was heaven, the little girl knew and smiled a drunken grin, her veins filled up with medication. She was in heaven with angels but she didn't know why. But the beauty of the bright white room and soft pretty faces comforted her confusion. Nurses watched the blipping of monitors and carefully measured more clear liquids to pump into the poor sleeping girl. She fell into sleep for many long days afterwards, and unbeknownst to her, the entirety of her parents' estate was transferred to her name. Locked away for her on her 18th birthday. In her comatose dreams, the sweet girl was unharmed, all pain filtered away by the miracle of heavenly nurses. 

The next time her eyes flickered with life was nearly a month later, shock and smoke inhalation had crippled her broken lungs and feeble body into a state of noncommittal death. The tubes were removed, the monitors became fewer, and chocolate milkshakes began to nourish her wasted body. Speech had momentarily left the girl, and her frustration and sadness came through in tears of confusion. She didn't remember how to ask for her mother and her father, she didn't remember how to ask for her stuffed animals. She pounded her white-clenched fists into the hallway on one of her walks through the ward. As she hit the wall again and again, finally collapsing into a tearful ball of anguish, the nurses could only watch with their own strife and sadness. A male orderly scooped up the bony girl and carried her back to the clean white bed. And so many days past until her mouth opened and uttered any words,

but the first was "mama". 

At this utterance one nurse fled the room with tears welling up, the others frowned so deeply, and the doctor whispered,

"Your mama is gone, baby girl... your mama is gone."

This didn't register and another word fell from her mouth, "Daddy?" She immediately repeated over and over again, "Daddy? Daddy... daddy?"

The doctor wiped away tears, and again spoke softly, "Your daddy is gone too, dear one. They've gone to heaven, sweet child. You are the only one left."

No more words came from the little girl for many months afterwards, but in this time of silence, she was given up by the hospital to become a ward of the state. Paper work was filed behind her back, as the hospital staff carefully brought her back to the world of the living, her legs became strong again, and her hair grew lustrously blonde like it had before the accident. Nobody spoke of the fire, or the lack of family, nobody wanted to admit to themselves that this small girl would become a number in a system of millions of poor children left without love. 

Before she left the pediatric ward, the child was thrown a party. Her birthday had passed months ago in her coma, and so she was given a half-birthday party, a going-away party in disguise. All the children of the ward who were able to came out to have cake and sing songs for her. A pig pink cake had been ordered with her name scrawled across in hot pink icing. She smiled as a birthday crown was placed on her head. She was then sent away that evening with a handful of gifts in a little suitcase. She had only two nightgowns and three dresses, all gifts from her doctor. Two books of fairytales and her blanket. And the pink phone the police chief had brought to the hospital after the fire, but she didn't seem to remember it. In her hands she squeezed tight a new stuffed kitty, a little orange tabby named Whiskers. A woman in a stiff suit came in a black car to pick up the mute girl outside the hospital.

The children's services woman did not speak to the girl, she only handed her a bag full of second-hand clothing, and a chocolate candy bar. This was her consolation prize for losing her family. She ate the candy bar with loud smacking bites. 

Across green hills and settling evening mist the car zoomed, and the girl would wave to the cows that they passed. She hadn't seen the verdant world in many months, only the white walls of the hospital, and the yellow walls of her therapist's office, the one who tried to get her to talk again. The car finally stopped at dusk in front of a low suburban home with bicycles and dead petunias on the lawn. The girl turned to the social worker, who said, "This is your new home."

The girl shook her head with vehemence as she sprung out of the car and ran down the block before she was apprehended by the woman in the stiff suit- how fast she could run! The child stood and cried on the sidewalk in this dismal neighborhood, and the social worker knelt to look at her face. She took her soft thumbs and wiped away the bulbous tears of the little girl. "These are good people, dear. They'll be nice to you, you'll have your own room. They've been waiting so long for a pretty little girl like you." Her words fell on deaf ears, as she walked the girl down the block back to her new foster home. 

The doorbell reverberated through the home and echoed back out onto the stoop for the two to hear, and a dog began barking furiously from the inside. The girl shied away and hid her bleary face in the woman's skirt, for she hated, hated dogs. One had bitten her hand once and she'd had to get stitches. She could not live with a dog. She could not live in this ugly grey house with peeling paint and dead flowers. 

A halo of light poured out of the door as two smiling faces peered into the girl's own face. "What a beautiful little girl!" A woman said loudly, squeezing the poor wispy girl into her spacious bosom. A balding man shook the social worker's hand as he took the suitcase and bag of clothes into the house. "You're just in time for dinner with your new family! Come inside and meet your brothers!" The new "mother" of the girl began to rush her into the home, but the social worker grabbed the woman's fleshy arm gently. 

"Ma'am, she doesn't talk. She's been through significant traumas, like I told you over the phone. Don't expect much." 

The social worker hugged the little girl. Her long arms awkwardly wrapping around the little stranger no longer in her care, and she waved good-bye. 

Inside the house too many smells tormented the girl and a big golden retriever came up to her and barked. The girl let out a frightened scream and began once again to cry, her face red and dry from so many previous tears. 
Her new "brothers' began to laugh at her. There were four of them, burly, dirty boys in overalls waiting at the dinner table for food. "Ma, she squeals like a little pig!" The youngest boy crooned, and the girl immediately went pale. 

Plates of food began to stack up on the table, full of corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and barbecued chicken parts. All food the girl hadn't eaten in so long. She was used to drinking chocolate milkshakes and eating soft things and pizza. Her new mother heaped food onto a chipped plate and sat it in front of her new "daughter". "Eat up baby girl, you must be hungry! Look at all them bones jutting outta you! We gotta get some meat on them bones!"

Her plate remained full. She sat weeping. Until finally her new mother dismissed her to bed.

She dove beneath the scratchy sheets and cried with her arms around the neck of her new stuffed kitty. She wanted so badly to walk out of this ugly room into her parents' arms. 

And she finally cried out, her understanding clear and sullen, her parents were gone from her, and she was stranded in this new home without anybody. 

"Mama!" She cried out all night, 
"Daddy!"