I Fear A Fire Burnt Country

• Rachel Sloan, Grade 12, McAuley Catholic College -
• Short Story
• 2020

Excellence Award in the 'The Inside Story 2020' competition

Day was worse than night
At night the fire was a beacon, an orange glow, but you knew where you stood. Day was bad.
The fire was sneaky during the day.
Before
The first sign was the sky. As yellow as the eyes of the devil, it set the sky alight like an omen to what was yet to come. We didn't know that yet. The wind blew everything out of proportion, the dust blinding us to what was yet to come. People I barely knew coming up to me telling me good luck, to be safe. Somehow they knew before I did. I wouldn't see these people for two weeks and I didn't return the same as I left.

During
Following the same steps around the deck. Surveying the danger that threatened us, threatened my friends, my family. Muscles wound constantly, on guard. Even now, six, seven weeks later my eyes follow the now worn path across the horizon. Routinely 'watering the deck'. Calming the dog. Keeping what to pack at the back of your mind. Not focusing on the one thing for too long because then you would remember. Remember you were fighting for your home, your friends. Your life. The power was cut the first night, so the house, normally filled with music and the sounds of people living, would be entirely silent. Everyone's ears would be strained to catch the first crackle of flames. Drinking the last of the juice, I sat on the hill and watched the helicopters trek their well worn path through the sky through half-lidded eyes.

The worst was the lack of communication. My family, scattered, scared. Only later would we find out who's houses were lost and who's survived. We left when the fire, a roaring red inferno, started to come down the hill. Two cars, filled to the brim of our lives and memories set off with the fire licking the wheels. My father, like a proud knight, staying to protect the house he so lovingly-painstakingly- built with his own hands. I hugged him goodbye, with his promises to leave soon ringing in my ears.
He never came. I thought we would find his ashes in the ruins of our house.

After
We found out as a group. Four of us, weeping in the middle of a supermarket. Two of us had houses. Two of us did not. I found out I still had a father and cried harder. I drove home with shaking hands. The half hour journey took two.
It wasn't over yet. Black Friday was ash in time but the horror, fear and trauma was still burning. I stopped thinking for ten minutes and found myself pacing the now well-worn path around the house. I only felt peace when the hose was in my hands. The cars stayed packed until we dared to breath again.

With the land, the community has begun to heal. But the deep scars will remain in the earth and in our psyche.