Explosion

Kaboom!

My life is disappearing in a cloud of blue and gray and little orange tongues. I never thought that my whole existence could be packed into seven bankers boxes. Seven, what a lonely number. Seven ash boxes of cinders in the shell that used to be a compact SUV.

New auburn hair, I can't bring myself to say red. It's in my eyes and mouth and so now the world tastes like hair dye as well as smoke. The chemicals create the most delicious palate.

In that car in one of those boxes is a laptop. Technological genius to devise something that can store so many stories in one sleek piece of plastic. I did some digging, before I set it to sleep for the last time. A time capsule of stale emotion, I should have known better.

Meridith was cold this night. And who's to say that she did not deserve to be cozy? It's not like he wasn't enjoying himself...if he wanted more he had a phone full of names he could try. She knew this, and somehow it made her feel better. Being used was infinitely easier then using people.

Funny. Looking back today those words seemed to have been written about the wrong person entirely. And so I closed the laptop and placed it gently on top of a pile of black and gold trinkets and a high school playbill. It was one easy move to put the lid on the box and the box in the car and walk away. The spark had been trickier, I didn't know how quickly the thing would catch, never having torched any sort of vehicle before. First I had tried tossing matches at a kerosene soaked interior, but they extinguished mid-flight. Bigger, I told myself. think bigger. That's when I remembered my brother. Well, he's not my brother anymore I suppose. He used to tell me that I always overdo things, that sometimes I should just take the simple way out. Looking around at the empty kerosene containers that littered the ground I grinned at what he would have said. Sis, you always have to be dramatic, don't you? Simple is better, just get the job done as efficiently as possible.

My bag beside me, the few essentials I had decided to save. Why did I think I would need hairspray, anyway? And it's perfect, I suppose, that I should use an old white shirt, something that I knew I shouldn't save to begin with. The last drops of cologne would only make it burn faster. Knot it and spray it- a routine usually performed on my own locks pre-shows.

Burn baby, burn.

The Kaboom! was in my mind. In reality it was a poof as the knotted shirt hit the seat and my old life went up in smoke.

Blue eyes open and I see you in the back seat, body struggling to return to consciousness. Your shirt rests beside you, and for the first and last time I see terror. And now I turn and walk away, new red hair swinging in the breeze.