Raindrops on Roses

She clutches the bear closer to her chest, nuzzling its soft fur with her nose. It still holds the faintest
scent of her family, of her home. She keeps her nose buried in the fur, trying to hold onto hazy memories
of warmth, of laughter, of joy but they keep blurring back into the ugly, twisted remains of her house in
front of her.

Terrible shame, they all had said. When it happened. What a terrible shame. She agreed with them, but
it was so much more than a shame. It did not matter to her that the bricks and debris would have to be
cleared away in order for a new house to be built on top, that new plants would need to be cultivated
and grown for the place to seem alive again. None of this mattered to her as she stood on what would
have been the doorstep, staring numbly at the blackness and desolation.

Tears blind her, stinging her eyes before dribbling down her cheeks. They mix with the rain, and she
only cries harder. It’s no good now, she wanted to scream. The fire took all that it could get, rain will
only swirl the black dust through the air, coating all those who try to forget.

People aren’t forgetting though, not now. Not today. There has been a steady stream of people,
families mostly, laying roses, poems, candles. She read the poems, stroking the pen marks gently and
committing a few to memory. The roses she smelt, to remind her that not everything was blackened
and burnt and dead.

She left the candles alone.

No one noticed her, but she preferred it that way. There would be tears if they had noticed her, here
on this day. Someone started singing Amazing Grace as the sun started to set, shaky voice uplifted
by the others in the neighbourhood. She wanted to join in, but the words stuck in her throat and more
tears poured out of her eyes, splashing onto the blackened fur of her teddy.

Once everyone had gone, she crosses the threshold into the house, carefully climbing over bits of
burnt curtain, burnt rug, burnt paper. She manages to make it to where the kitchen would have been
before starting to cry again. There, tucked underneath a brick, was a piece of fluttering paper.

Carefully, she pulls it free and held it up to the vanishing light. It was a picture of them, back when
they were all still alive, when they were happy and together. The fire had singed the edges slightly, and
it felt like fabric under her fingertips, but she stares at it, wishing with all her might that she could go
back to that time, to that place.

I don’t want to be alone, she thinks as she stared up at the sky. I can’t be alone, not now. So she
squeezes her eyes shut and prays on a shooting star, the way her older brother taught her.

When she opens her eyes, there are her neighbours in jackets and wellies standing amongst the ruins
of her home. She tries to tell them to go away, to leave her home alone, but they ignore her. She
waves her arms at them, trying to scream, but it gets stuck in her throat. They continue to move
debris into sacks, stopping every so often when they see something sad. One of the little girls that she
recognises starts to cry, bawling about her missing friend, and the people share looks of sadness.

She wants to yell at them, to tell them to stop being stupid, that she is right here, she’s not missing,
she’s hurting and her family are dead, they’ve all been killed in the fire that destroyed this house that
they are all standing in but-

They all just walk right through her.