Dresden

When the ashes have settled and the fires have died, it all seems so clear. Of course it would be clear, wouldn't one think? When the radioactive cloud has dissipated and the chemicals have reverted to safe old oxygen, of course everything is clear.

It's always clear when you don't need it to be, when it doesn't matter how far off you can see into the future, or the past, or down the road to somewhere in your memory.

It is when we need to see, when we need to see what is down that road hidden in the depths of our subconscious, that our view is clouded. With fog and smoke and the flash of a million billion bombs launched by the human equivalent of a cheese danish. No one remembers the fire that rained from the sky and melted the skin of our families. No one wants to remember, and that is where the problem lies.

Old memories; banquets in a church where not a single person believed in God and burnt cupcakes that never tasted of vanilla in the first place. A howl and a clatter, then a sickening crunch of bone and flesh. Blood spilled on the floor and soaked into the spaces between the tiles. No matter how many times she scrubbed those tiles, no matter what she used, the red never quite came out. Even now, you can see it, just a faint crimson blush among the pure and virginal white. A dark reminder that we will never be able to forget.

We fought and raged and screamed though the battle, blind because if we opened our eyes the haze would burn our retinas out, singe them into nothing. We could not lose our sight, not if we could do something about it. Our sight was what made us alive. That was the only thing that made us real.

What do we do now, now that the way is clear but the chemicals in the yellow gas, that foul air, have destroyed our way of sight? What do we do now?

The road is clear, but we are blind.