Ash

The hands in her hair felt sad, their longing search unyielding and needy. Had time already brought grief to the young? So soon did the people now parish that she knew in her heart they were already an extinct species. What ruins they had held onto for these past years had diminished along with all traces of happiness. A world of crumbling pavement was a hopeless one.

She felt the last strands of hair swiped clean from her neck, then the weight of a heavy braid falling to her back.
"Thank you my dear" she smiled at the little one.
The little one stared back, her round gray eyes serious and void.

She had to look away.

Only when her eyes traveled away from the small tortured face could she remain strong. In this she found no comfort simply a temporary avoidance of panic.

As she thanked the little one and began walking away she heard a noise. So quiet at first it was barely identifiable, but as she stopped and strained to listen she was growing more certain of what she was hearing. It was a jet. A jet plane. The noise was intensifying, rumbling, yet everything else was still, silent almost. The grey scenery was overwhelming, dead. Ashes fell too slowly to the ground, like peaceful snowfall. She could hear nothing but the jet and her own breathing, the rest of the world gone cold.

It was so close now. She turned around, her breathing heavy, ash catching in her eyelashes. She saw no airplane. There stood only the little one, pale and emotionless. The little one's mouth was open screaming. No not screaming but rumbling. There was no airplane, she'd been fooled.

"Stop that!" she shouted.

The rumbling grew louder. Blood ran from the corners of the little one's open mouth, from the eyes and the heart of her white nightgown.

She watched in horror, a sob rising in her. She tried to run to the little one, tried to save her. But she could not move forward, no matter how she tried.

Silence.

Red ashes spin elegantly to the ground. There is not a soul to be seen. There is no one left.