Glug!  Glug!  Glug!

That’s what I thought I could hear in the background as she cried through the phone. 

“You’re killing me, you know that?!  This is your fault!”

Her words were garbled and choked with tears, barely understandable. 

“What are you doing?”

“You’re killing me!”

“Stop!  I’m coming over!”

After that she said ‘bye.’  I’m not sure if it actually happened, but I’d like to think she also said ‘I love you.’  That would’ve been an understatement because we were more than love.  Yeah, when I really think about it she did say it.

This was before the day of cell phones, so I slammed the phone down and ran out of my house.  It wasn’t much of a house, but a house nonetheless.  I started my truck and sped down the dirt road.  This was also before the days of speeding tickets and assholes.  Where I lived there was no law, there was just life, and life governed all.  Dust flew up behind the old black rubber as I tore down the dirt roads to her old farm.  She lived there alone, except for her dog, Bane.  Bane was a handsome retriever woven from gold. 

What was she doing?  What am I going to find when I get there?  What was that noise on the phone?

When I got out of the trees and looked down the farm road I knew.  Thick black smoke plumed up through the spring air.  I raced to get to the house.  My heart was stretched from my throat to the bottom of my guts.  Trees and shadows covered me from the blue sky as I drove down the road.

Amber flames engulfed the entire two-story house.  The reds and oranges fought over oxygen and wood out of sick greed.

I got out of the truck.

“Emily!  Emily!”

I kept screaming, but I knew.  I ran around the house caustically calling her name, and then I tripped.  The heat nearly took my breath from me, but I managed to get to my knees.  I could feel the blood oozing out of my head and quickly drying.  I kept shouting out of hopes, out of the small hope that she wasn’t in the house.  Out of desperation I begged a god that I don’t believe in to let me find her.  I prayed that she wasn’t burning in that hell before my desperate eyes.

Between the crying and screaming I collapsed from my knees even lower to the ground.  I felt something touch my shoulder.  An angel to answer my prayers, I thought.  I got to my feet.  By this point the smoke was so thick that I could barely see in front of me.  I stumbled away from the fire, and turned to watch the house collapse upon itself and I felt something in my hand.  I turned and looked: Bane.

He nudged my hand with his wet nose and looked at me with a wagging tail.  He wanted to play.