Blackend Horizon

A Story by R. L. Ambar

From the side the road, a fire burns. She watches it with greif...she watches

Blackened Horizon

There was no one that stood before me, not like there was before…no one came to help me up, no one cared. I stood alone, taking in only the essence of the rain and the emotion the crept up beside me like a dark cloud of smoke. The shaking in my fingers moved up my arms and encased my whole body; it felt as if my insides were rattling, enough for them to shatter. The heat pushed at my skin; digging into me, baring it’s way through my body to reach beyond my existence. The tears that once ran down my face were dried away leaving only the faint markings that they were ever there. I did not cry for me, or for you, but for the future I should now call my past, the lost which will never be found.

My eyes stung, in any other situation the pain would be too unbearable, but right here, I could I only watch, I could only gaze out into what seemed to be a dream. The world seemed dark, much darker then it did before on this dreary night, not the flame in front of me, nor the stars and the moon that stood bravely in the sky could lighten this view, but I was not afraid, darkness was no fear of mine. I could see the wind dancing with the flames, moving with them, together they grew larger and more vicious, but still I stood and watched, for it was all I could do. This wind did not touch me, but moved around me as if I was protected in a shield that wind could not exist in. My tattered hair stood still, and my body did not sway with the powerful breeze, I was frozen, stuck to the earth by this great force, the one no one can see, or feel, or explain.

In the blackened horizon two lights seemed to burn through the cloak of night fall, and rolled in towards me. The sound of what I could remember as a car engine broke the bond between me and the fire, the cracking of the flames, the dancing on the wind. I could hear the car slowly moving, the sound of the sand melding with the thick tire wheel, and the breaks being pressed in a soft but sudden force. The doors on both sides of the car swung open, my eyes felt drawn back to flames, the heat which before burnt my eyes, now soothed them and seem to be hypnotic. The two male voices seemed distant, almost as if they stood on the side of a mountain yelling for me and I, I was on the other side not wanting to be found. One ran past the flames that my eyes held so deeply in a gaze, which brought me to follow him as he ran to you, to bend down and listen to you mouth, as if you were crying out sweet words but only made forms of distorted whisper. The flames reached for the sky making the sound of prolonged thunder, both men seemed startled, you laid still, and I stood here without a word watching.

“I would like to report a car crash on the Great Eastern High Way, two victims, one male and female, the female seems to be pregnant.”

I watched as the men scurried between their car, and ours, between the light and the darkened night. I looked behind me, squinting to see beyond the darkness, there on the road laid two black marks that seemed to be animal track, but they were of no animal, they were of our car. The tracks go on for a meter or two then fade into the tar road through the darkness of the rain that fell all day and all night, gathering in pools along the banks of the road edge, pools that seemed so dark that you could fall through them, and be lost in a world beyond the one I sat and watched.

I turn my attention back to the flames; they still danced, flickering in the deepest of night. Two lights again appeared on the horizon, but these were no ordinary lights, they shone of red and blue. The whole sky seemed to flash, and the sound echoed close behind the light I saw, a sound that could wake among the deadest. The car skidded to a halt, and a man and a woman both wearing little white clothes, left the car carrying with them little red bags. They came to you, to your rescue, like whites knights with an arms a bravery and skin of steel. I watched them prod at your skin and talk with what seemed to be gibberish, though still was English, the woman pulled a black box out and spoke into it as you would with a telephone. Then in her little white suit with her little red bag she ran to the flame filled car and disappeared behind it as if a door stood there, out of my view. Another one arrived, the cars with the red and blue lights, and two men appeared from that car, and it seemed that it was too long ago that I was all alone on this dark road with nothing but the flames to light my way. I watched the man bring a long metal bed to you, the woman re-appeared and helped the man lift you on to it, and they carried you back to their flashing car with red and blue lights, and they disappeared into the night. The other car was empty but I could not see the men, maybe they walked into the door that stood behind the flaming car, the one which the little white woman disappeared into before. I looked down as my feet began to wander away from where I stood, and they took me beyond the flames, I saw no door, nor an entrance or exit of any form, I saw myself, laying in silence, with no air in my lungs, no thought in my mind.

“She’s dead, but I can hear the baby’s heart beat.”

They too brought a metal bed, and helped my still form onto it, rolling it up the hill and into the car, with red and blue lights, I watched as I lay there, so still and at peace, they closed the doors and disappeared into the blackened horizon, within the blackness of night.

I stood there watching the flames flicker, I did not think about how long they would last, or if they were to grow, I just watched them dance with the wind, melding together.

There was no one that stood before me, not like there was before…no one came to help me up, and I, I did not care.