Brifield: Flash Fiction
The problem was that his father did not want to die anywhere else
The problem was that his father did not want to die anywhere else. But the fire season had started earlier than usual and Brifield, uncharacteristically, was in danger. His father’s longtime nurse, Margaret, had been unwilling to stay. “You’re going to kill me too,” Nicholas had said to his father. “I’m not asking you to stay,” said his father, speaking slowly, with great effort. “You’re free to leave.” “But I have no choice,” Nicholas had said, not because he loved his father, or even because his father was his father, but simply because his father had no one else. “You’re free to leave,” repeated his father, and Nicholas knew that once his father started repeating himself it would be impossible to persuade him. So he had decided to stay and hope that the end came quicker than the fire.
As the days passed part of him yielded to the sweet nostalgia of being back at his childhood home in the countryside; but it was much changed. At night the land looked purple and wounded; during the day the sky was dull from the distant smoke. In fact the entire house was suffused with the smell, and he had to wear a mask whenever he went outside. Those others who lived in the area had already evacuated their homes; somehow, knowing the houses were empty made them seem stiller than usual, as if they were corpses that had stiffened.
It began to seem his father might actually die the way he wanted to: he became so weak he could no longer speak. One night, Nicholas dared to hold his father’s hand in the oppressive atmosphere of the bedroom and full of a nameless emotion told him that he would not forget him; his father mumbled unintelligibly in response; he feared he had said something wrong.
At some point Nicholas’ phone, which he had been using to track the fires, lost all service. Knowing that the fires, depending on the direction in which they spread, were less than a day away, he could no longer sleep for extended periods of time without running the risk that the fires might catch him unawares. He dreamt several times of awakening doused in a peculiar glow and looking out the window to see a wall of radiant flame; he began to worry that he would not be able to tell reality from a dream if the fires actually engulfed the house. In fact he could scarcely differentiate the sluggish but vivid imaginings of his unconscious from his scattered, murky waking thoughts; many times, while sleeping, he had convinced himself that his dreams were too lucid to be dreams and fled the house, only to awaken in the safety of his bed.
Finally Nicholas awoke to his alarm one morning and the smoke was rousing itself sallowly across the dawn. He walked slowly to his father’s room, trying not to hope for anything. His father was alive. He carried him out the front door, not bothering to lock it behind him, the smoke already so thick it was like a fog had settled over the land. As he drove toward Dorrington, his father limp in the passenger’s seat, the smoke lessened and lessened but never entirely disappeared. He did not know exactly when, but at some point while the car was still engulfed in the haze of the charred sky, his father ceased to breathe.
