by Alexia Lindsley
I recoiled from the blistering grip of my older brother’s fingers on my forearm which interrupted my deep slumber.
“Piper,” Darin wrenched on my arm, this time with a frenzied urgency. “Piper, the fire’s here. Wake up! We need to get Mom and Dad, and go. Our house, the neighbors’, everything- it’s burning.”
I bolted upright. Darin’s face glistened with a thick sheen of perspiration in the faint beams of apricot light illuminating my room, and terror danced in his emerald eyes. Rivulets of sweat trickled down my scorching back. My lungs ached from gulping mouthful upon mouthful of smoke. Darin hauled me up from my bed through my ajar bedroom door into the hallway of our small, Cape Cod two story.
Two years ago, in 2020, the California wildfires worsened, and started to engulf the state on a mass scale. National news was consumed with horrific coverage of the redwood forest and Yosemite National Park being reduced to mere ashes, leaving behind desolate gray landscapes. Then, the fires in Oregon. Afterwards, there was a hiatus, as the fires continued, but on a scale of lesser extremity, and we had thought we were safe. But in the past few days, they had grown larger, spread faster. Yet here in Caldwell, Idaho, no one expected what was now our inevitable fate.
Darin and I scampered down the hallway to our parents’ bedroom at the end of the hallway, the dense smog in the atmosphere suffocating us; it seemed impossible to inhale any oxygen. I wrapped my damp, sweat-soaked, dark brunette hair around my mouth and nose, an idiotic attempt at fashioning a filter, to no avail. Nostalgic flashbacks of school fire drill procedures, and mental images of my classmates and I stopping, dropping, and rolling on the dirty classroom floors overtook my thoughts. Our teachers had told us that heat rises, so at lower levels, we would be cooler and could breathe with an increased ease. “Get,” I wheezed, “-down.”
I crouched on the floor and Darin followed my lead, his strawberry blonde curls, now limp and resting flat. Carpet burn bit my skin as I alternated dragging my knees and elbows across the ground to propel myself forward. Once we reached the master suite, I pawed the door open with my sweaty left palm. As the door clicked and fell agape, we arose, reaching to shake our parents awake.
“WAKE UP! FIRE!” I screamed, hoarse. Mom sprung out of bed, alert, followed by my groggy father. “What do you mean, fire? It’s here?” Mom asked, oblivious. She was met with silence, the view of the flames’ flickering orange light in the smoke-clouded air through the windows being all the answer needed.
“What the hell?” Dad screeched. “There is no way the fire could have spread that quick from Oregon.” We all looked back and forth at one another, unable to respond.
“We need to go,” Mom said, breaking the silence.
The four of us crawled out of the room, first Mom, then me, Darin, and at last Dad, and slid down the beige carpeted stairs on our butts, bumping along into the living room like Darin and I did when we were younger. Aghast, my eyes swept across the room, surveying the fire seeping from the kitchen doorway on the left. I inhaled through my nose, and the hair in my nostrils stung as if it was singing. My vision blurred as I stared at all of our possessions, which would soon be ash. I saw the dog bed nestled in the living room corner that belonged to our beagle, Snoopy, who was nowhere to be seen.
“Snoopy!” I called, without response. “SNOOPY!” I called louder. I waited, feeling an onslaught of panic.
“Piper, we have to go. Maybe he’s just waiting outside,” said Mom, steering me toward the front entryway and trying to reassure me, but her eyes darted back and forth, searching with desperation that matched mine.
My throat constricted with the combined strain of trying to breathe and holding down prickling tears. “Okay,” I whispered.
“We have to go,” Dad said, opening the front door. We filed out onto the people-flooded sidewalk. Before walking away, we turned to stare at the front of our house, watching the blaze lick the white siding and indigo shutters of our home. My mom sniffled and Darin, Dad, and I turned to look at her, watching as her eyes became glassy with tears that fell, trekking distinguishable paths down the grime coating her cheeks. She then gasped, with terror. “No,” she whispered.
I turned to find her source of shock, and- there Snoopy was. His endearing brown eyes peered at us through the living room window in fright. His right paw was scratching at the bay window in our living room. Despite the distance between us, I could hear his piteous whimpers. He panted, his pale salmon tongue swinging back and forth from the sweltering heat.
My eyes stung and I became dizzy. In that moment, I realized the reality of everything- this wasn’t a nightmare I’d wake up from in a few hours’ time. I yearned to go back for him, but knew I’d never make it. My view of Snoopy was swallowed by the smoke and the flames, and he was gone. But there wasn’t time to cry- the fire was still raging around us. We followed the crowd’s flow down the street, to a gathering of vermillion fire trucks, ambulances, and white escort shuttles. Firefighters passed around paper masks, and reminded of the ongoing pandemic, people spaced themselves apart, organizing themselves among the escort shuttles; signs on their windows labelled their destination. Without anywhere to go, we boarded the closest shuttle, settling in the last row of navy, cracked, dusty leather seats. People who looked as broken as us filed in, filling the vacancies. With a sputter, the vehicle jolted forward, taking us from what wouldn’t be our last encounter with the firestorm.
