00:00They said it was accidental ignition, defective fireworks had leaked compounds into the air,
00:04metallic dust built up. A cigarette ember must have touched it off. It sounded neat when adults
00:09said it. Industrial. Tragic. Explainable. But the body they carried out was blackened and ruined.
00:15My mother tried to cover my eyes. She was too late. I still saw enough. To this day,
00:19I can still see flashes of color above burnt flesh. That was the night I thought the world
00:24had ended. It didn't. It just kept going without him. Afterward, the workers started telling a
00:28different story. My father had gone there to steal fireworks. He was poor, they said. He had
00:33access. Maybe he had marked good stock as defective and hidden it for resale. I was five. I wanted to
00:39reject it. But children build blame wherever they can reach it. I loved fireworks. I always had. I
00:45watched other people's displays from the edge of their yards and wanted what we could never buy.
00:49So the story changed shape inside me. Maybe he had gone for me. Maybe he had stolen out of love.
00:54And if that was true, then his death did not belong only to him. I looked down at the table
00:59so Daniel wouldn't see how wet my eyes had gotten again. I came to believe that if he died getting
01:03fireworks for me, then I killed him. The pen stopped in Daniel's hand. He did not interrupt.
01:08He just waited for me to keep going.
Bình luận