Echoes of Ashes

It had been twenty years since my last visit to this dreary place. The old steam train that had sped through the town on creaky tracks had long since halted its route. The engine now rusting in the old town square, on its side, where it had derailed that fateful night. The long streak of torn ground and bits of metal and other materials leading up to the engine is now blooming with small orange and white flowers and green grasses. It’s a wonder how such a tragic event could grow into something so beautiful.

I close my eyes and turn around. I still wake from dreams of blood and torn bodies. My stomach tightens as my heart races. I’m going to be sick, but I have to do this. I have to remember so that I can move on. I open my eyes and carnage greats me. Blood soaking into the bricks of the town center. Bodies strewn across it. Some are missing arms and legs; one is missing a head, and another has an iron pole protruding from its abdomen, blood dripping from its open mouth. Motionless. A stillness that fills the chaos. Burning fires cling to buildings and bodies. Smoke and ash fill the night air and my lungs. I choke. Blood sprays the ground where I’ve collapsed. I can’t breathe. I blink.

The moment I open my eyes, the scene clears. It’s daytime. Flowers and grass surround a large crater. The epicenter of the explosion is void of life, as though it too, could not move on from that moment. Bits of metal remains are still scattered across the ground and imbedded in the few buildings still standing.

I suck in a deep breath and turn back to the place where she fell. Below the rusted back wheel where she bled and her life ended. I blink away the flash of clouded blue eyes and red-stained blond hair. She never did like this square. “It's a place solely for the hustle and bustle of everyday workers. It needn't be a gathering spot for tourists as well.” She would say. And yet, we were there that day. Not for work, I know, however the reason why has long since eluded me.

I close my eyes once more, allowing the memories in. They flow like a torrent. I was only a child then, clinging to my mother's soft, warm hand. My forehead dampened by the beating of the hot summer sun. People passed by close enough to touch, their bodies and breaths adding to the heat and humidity. They swarmed by the hundreds. Some moving with purpose, a destination in mind, like ants traveling in lines. Others stood still, cameras in hand, facing the beauty of the sculptured fountain that filled the square. Then there were those who weaved in and out of the crowd. Entering and exiting shops and businesses like they owned the colored bricks below their well-tailored shoes. Bags bursting with goods and trinkets held in hands dressed in priceless stones and gems.

Mother hated those people. They were the ones that transformed our small, modest town into the tourist epicenter it became. I sometimes wonder if she would still be here if those people hadn't invaded. If her sapphire eyes would still glitter as she looked down at me. If her rosy cheeks would still plump as she smiled.

I still remember that smile, and the way her eyes would shimmer like those gems on the manicured fingers of those invaders; and the melody that was her soft laughter, like the gentle tinkling of those wooden chimes we hung on our porch each spring. Those are distant memories now, faded and worn like the soles of old shoes. Unlike the memories of that day. No, those memories have stayed with me, haunted me, woke me from slumber each night. Repeating over and over and over.

I still panic at the whistle of the wind through the cracks of my door, or the sound of a kettle fully boiled, or the rattle of an old train approaching its station. No one knew why the train hadn’t slowed that day, or how the building beside the tracks had blown to bits at the perfect moment to send the train careening toward the square. Toward that towering fountain. Toward the people. Toward my mother.

Booms, screams, the crackling of fire, the snapping of bones, the popping of beams in collapsing buildings. I cover my ears. Sharp rubble digs into my knees, my forehead. I see red. I see ash. My mind is consumed by flashes of burning bodies, mangled limbs, blood, my mother’s clouded eyes, her bloodied neck. A head with no body. A mangled body below a large iron wheel.

Silence.

Nothing.

Echoes of screams in a void of darkness. The smell of spring flowers and fresh grasses and damp earth. Red. I suck in a sharp breath. The air slides into my lungs, burning. My throat is raw and dry as though screams of my own had mingled with those echoes of others. I open my eyes to green and orange and white. I turn my head to the side. Flowered vines twisted and tangled up and through that rusted iron wheel. It sat, leaning on stones and rubble like a bittersweet memorial, far more meaningful than the chiseled stone that sits upon her grave. She would have liked this, I think. A reminder that beauty and life can sometimes follow tragedy and death.

Something burst in the core of my chest then. Something raw and stained and bloody, and full. It exploded into my throat, seeping in and then out of my sapphire blue eyes. Flowing down muddy cheeks and seeping into broken bricks and soft dirt. I stared at that wheel as those tears fell and fell. As the sky turned from blue to orange to purple. I cried. For the first time since she left, I cried. And when the sky faded from purple to black, I rose from the ground, kissed the cool rusted metal, turned, and walked away. My chest feeling lighter than it had in twenty years.