My House is on Fire

Written By: Maham Shahbaz

My house is on fire; its burning away there is ash flying. Why can I not go in? I did all that you said I bowed down to your decisions I cried when I asked for something, I was on my knees. What more do you want? Why can I never be enough for you? I clean and sweep, I scrub away the patches of evil from my soul I try to get rid of what I was born with. I’m torn now, I’m torn in two. Which side of me should I pick? Which side of me should I betray? The irony of it, how I despise betrayal and you bring me to a situation where i must betray a part of me.

The house burned and in the empty street a girl shouted and cried. She was hysterical. In broad day light she could find no one. There was a silent spectator around the corner, he dared not move close to her. His soul ached, if he even had one, to comfort her. She was like a vault, she could never trust, she could never open except for to a few and in that vault there were more vaults, more locks...no one can ever carry so many keys. The biggest flaw was this. He could see her banging the door and screaming, looking up at the sky. He feels sympathetic, who at a time like this, would ask for help from someone who was responsible for this?

"Open it! Open it, please!" I fell to my knees shouting this as if it was a spell and the main door a magically operated door. I cry and I look up and after all this time I’m in this confusion, I’m helpless just so helpless. What irritated her was that she just couldn’t lock him out, she tried it all she just couldn’t and that made her vulnerable. With tears in her eyes she looked up and shouted "help me understand or make me dumb, i cannot bear this anymore."

The silent spectator moved a bit closer, he hesitated and took a step back again. He saw how oddly the fire was only in one room of the whole house, how it didn’t spread and it had been hours but it was just in one room. He looked closely and he saw that with every flicker and with every crackle of the fire, the girl outside wretched and felt lose. He couldn’t understand but he was always there for her senseless broken incidents. Always calming her but he couldn’t move and that was painful for him. He saw how the room kept on burning but its foundations stood firm, how the walls outside were clean even though the smoke was thick and black, he saw how the roof didn’t even move and seeing this he nodded and began to move towards her. She was suffocating...as if she was in the room and smoke was around her but the smoke wasn’t going towards her, it deviated from its path as she came near.

I feel dizzy. I will black out and fall. Who is that? There was a person behind her. She moved towards him and in haze asked "you again? Meet me when I’m conscious" He smiled "I cannot" She turned her head "of course" He felt uncomfortable because he couldn’t make her understand "this isn’t real, you know that? A part of you is burning again and again. It’s thirsty. Why do you deprive it of water?" She looked at the room "I can stop the fire. I just...I’m...I...can’t breathe" He sighed "the smoke, it will suffocate the rest of you as well, not just the part that’s burning. You know you need to put it out. It will destroy you if you don’t” She looked up and smiled, she raised her hands up in defeat and a tear rolled down. "...and so I shall try again to put out this fire the way it’s supposed to be put out...." just before fading away she looked at the presence "...meet me when I’m conscious..."