Photo by Matt Howard on Unsplash

Word Prompt | Smolder

When the Smoke Settles

In the ruins of what once was, something still stands

Author’s Note:

• When the Smoke Settles was inspired by the 2024 wildfires in Jasper National Park, Canada. Driving through the area this year, I was awestruck by the devastation — entire swaths of forest have been reduced to ash, trees, their needles scorched brown, litter the landscape as far as the eye can see, and the air still carries the memory of what had burned. I thought about all that might have been lost at that time — homes, history, love? This story is about the pain of losing everything — and the surprising hope that can grow from it.*

Had it started with lightning? A single strike to a whitebark pine, deep in the forest? The fires were discovered close together, but too far apart to be from the same event.

By the time his unit was dispatched, the flames had already demolished hundreds of acres. The mountains he called home had become a furnace. Smoke so thick you could taste it. Embers fell like shooting stars.

He hadn’t worried then. Not yet. The fire was 200 kilometers away from the town he lived in, tucked in a valley, two ridges over. Moving south, it was someone else’s fire to put out. His crew was only there to tend to hotspots.

Now, the world burned around him.

Trees crackled and toppled in the distance. Skeletal columns glowed orange in the smoke-blackened air. Flames licked at trunks — climbed like hungry serpents, devouring everything in their path. He pushed through the blaze in heavy gear, sweat pouring down his back, eyes burning despite the mask, his face smudged with dirt and soot. The roar of the inferno was thunderous. He had to shout just to be heard by the man beside him. He was thankful no one said too many words — not that there was much to say.

His team worked at a brutal pace. Dig, soak, move, cut. No time to think. No time to rest. No time to care about the ache in his shoulders or the blisters on his palms. The fire simply continued to press forward, outward. Always alive and seemingly starved, fueled by bone-dry brush and high winds that shifted without warning.

He stole a second to glance at the sky, a thick canvas of gray and black. Somewhere beneath the dense smoke, his town still stood — or so he hoped.

But hope did little when it came to forest fires. The wind speed rose, and his stomach dropped.

It was moving fast. Too fast. What had taken days to creep forward, now surged miles in hours, jumping ridgelines, leaping roads. One spark turned into a dozen. A dozen became a wall of fury.

At shift change, in a battered trailer used for command, he watched the devastation live on a beat-up TV screen. The image was fuzzy and rolled in that way only old TVs can. The announcer’s voice was muffled with static from a blown speaker, but he heard it clearly enough.

“Flames have reached the outskirts of town.”

With shaky hands, he dialed her number. No signal. He tried again, then again. Finally, he tried the neighbor, but got the same answer. He stared at the phone, feeling helpless. An evacuation had been ordered hours ago, but he hadn’t heard from her — not one call, not a single text. He told himself it was still okay. The nearest tower had been swallowed by flame. Power poles were down. Nothing more sinister than that.

He didn’t sleep. Not that he could have. Not when the fire raged like a living being. Not when her silence burned hotter than the blaze itself.

The fire was finally declared held, though the word meant little to him. Containment was finally possible, but the damage was done. He pulled every string he had, asked every favor, to be among the first cleared to return home — though many no longer called it home anymore. Not now.

The drive was surreal. Miles of charred forest rolled past the windows. Trees stood like blackened matchsticks, stripped of life. The sky had lost its vibrancy, dulled by ash that drifted on the wind like impure snow.

He turned onto their street — what was left of it. The pavement had buckled and cracked in places, twisted by the heat. Mailboxes were bent and blistered, displaying last names in half-melted paint.

He stopped at the sight.

Where once their house stood, now sat a twisted shell of scorched timber. The roof had caved, the foundation was cracked and crumbling beneath a blanket of debris.

He stepped from his truck, boots crunching on charred bits of wood and rubble as he walked closer.

His breath caught.

There — amid the blackened ruins — was the clawfoot tub. The same old cast-iron monstrosity she’d refused to replace, even when the enamel chipped and the legs rusted. She loved that tub. Said it was the only place she ever really relaxed. He could see her, clear as day — one leg stretched along the rim, her wet hair piled high, steam curling up to the ceiling as she hummed some half-familiar tune.

He choked on the image.

Beyond the tub, nothing stood. In the yard, the rose hedge she’d nurtured every year was reduced to stalks, shriveled and charred. She used to curse the thorns and the clay-hardened soil, insisting roses had no business growing in such a rugged place — but they did, because she’d made them bloom.

She’d made everything bloom.

Now it was all gone.

The wind swirled ash around his feet. He knelt beside the tub, fingers brushing the rim like it might somehow still be warm from use. His shoulders trembled with unshed tears.

Then — movement.

A familiar shape appeared through the haze of wreckage. Hidden behind wisps of smoke, she became clearer with each step.

He stood with his heart in his throat, his tongue thick against the inside of his cheek.

She walked toward him, denim jacket coated in soot. Her long hair tangled in knots. Ash clung to her skin like frost.

Although smudged and sunburnt, she was unmistakably alive.

A sound left him. Something between a sigh and a sob.

She didn’t run. Neither did he. There was no need.

They came together, surrounded by the ruins of what was once theirs.

The smoldering earth around them seemed chilled compared to the fire in her gaze, the slow burn of recognition, of grief, of impossible relief.

They didn’t speak. No words were needed. They were two people who had almost lost everything — but hadn’t.

Not quite.

Written for the May Word Prompt, Smoulder (smolder) on Mmm Mondays…

[embed]When Everything Smoulders Perhaps it would be tonight!medium.com

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