Work Text:
I stare at the fire consuming everything. My gaze is fixed. I can’t say anything.
It’s horrifying.
Decades, centuries of work and passion and creativity and culture and life—destroyed in a few cruel minutes. Destruction is always faster and easier than creation.
It’s my fault.
I know that it’s too simple a statement. That this entire situation is the fault of so many. But that doesn’t stop it from feeling horribly true. The guilt will stay with me, clinging like one of those sticky burrs, for a very long time.
I don’t write these thoughts down in my journal.