It had been more than two weeks since the fire, but the stink of it clung to her hair, her skin. Safe now at her cousin’s house, she took long showers twice a day, but the stench lingered. When she closed her eyes at night, the images came back to her.

Shops and apartments consumed by the blaze. The long, wretched faces of her neighbors as they watched their lives disintegrate into ashes.

But there had been a few who hadn’t fled. A few who bore beatific looks of awe as the flames danced in their eyes.

She bent over the bathroom sink, ran the water as cold as it would go, and viciously scrubbed her eyes. Those people were burned into her retinas. Their arms outstretched as they walked into the fiery shops. Ready to embrace the angel of death.

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