CONSTANT ASH
By: Lindsay Peterson
S
nowy ash fell, blanketing the ground with yet another layer of memories from the disaster. In the distance, a pack of coyotes, or wild dogs,
called to each other in celebration of a fresh kill and welcomed in the
cold, brisk morning with their haunting hymn. Yet, the sun did not shine
to greet the day as I did in my waking. It never did anymore. There was
just the spectral gray light that managed only to dull everything. Although, everything wasn’t really much of anything anymore.
Things seemed to be getting better the further north I went. Or perhaps
that was just my biased optimism that told me that was how it was supposed to be. I was chasing rumors from six months back that held promise of a place where the fallout wasn’t nearly as bad, where the winter
wasn’t so harsh.
Here, wherever I was at this point, there was no sign of relief. The
barren trees creaked with death under the weight of ash as it fell with a
heavy sound from the infinite gray of the sky. That’s what had really been
devastating. The ash, that is. Remarkably, the radiation had been concentrated mainly around the epicenters. But the cloud of ash that spread
itself thick, coating everything, blocked out the sun and snowed down
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in a freezing blizzard. Dusty winds forced themselves across the earth,
tainting the air in their suffocating wake.
I stopped walking and started kicking feet of ash away from my
boots, trying to see the earth beneath. Hoping to find what? Dried grass
long rotten? Remnants of the leaves that once formed a canopy above
me? Or just to see if I could beat the ash? To take back something else
it had stolen from me? But I couldn’t reach the ground. It was like digging down through a winter’s worth of snow and being unable to break
through that final compacted layer of ice. Frustrated, I scoffed at the
ground and kicked the top layer of ash into the air, watching it swirl up in
the wind.
I let my head fall back and looked up at the trees. Closing my
eyes, I let the ash gracefully caress my face. It’d have almost been autumn,
I think. Her favorite season. I imagined when the wind would blow gently and every sun-kissed leaf danced and dazzled as if each were bright
metallic green sequins showing off. Her auburn hair was splashed across
the cool grass as she lay next to me in our late summer sanctuary. A few
early leaves donned their autumn gowns and danced their way to the
ground, landing softly and surely around us. I reached out and stroked
her fair cheek and she smiled.
With a sharp crack, my wife’s face and everything else was ripped
away from me in a violent snap. My eyes shot open and I took a startled
step back. I heard another stick break, this time accompanied by voices.
In a rush, I lunged towards the nearest stand of thickets and managed to
push myself through the first few feet of briers. My tattered bandanna
caught on a sharp branch and was torn off my face. I snatched it quickly
put it back and retied it, guarding my lungs, as I dropped to my knees.
I had dug myself down into the ash just in time to watch a small caravan
of nine people pass only yards from where I’d been standing. I stare