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Description
(It hurts less when it’s)
Someone Else

I can’t help but feel a shrouded ache stab through the pit of me, sucking my life-force into it, in sympathy for this girl. She had lost everything. Standing rod still but for the occasional tremor outside her defiled home, whose sweet safety had suddenly rotted, as she had made the call. Her voice heavy on weak supports, for all she had drawn on for love and strength was the home’s taint; the evening’s immense discovery.
“My family is dead ...”

The arrival of the medics brought probing of her life and desperately fashioned walls by poking, prodding and drawing bits of it into vials for tests. To discover a shocked calm clutching her shell together and a headache she knew was too intense to be caffeine withdrawals. Her pooled eyes lined in darkened lashes held the officers’ gaze as she recounted coming home in a voice that echoed around the voids in her heart until it settled, reassured, into the officers’ living ears.

I thought of her report now, as I visually took in the details anew; her pain’s knife twisting in my chest again.
The examination of her family's bodies, along with the fact that the house had to be flushed from an alarming amount of carbon monoxide, had revealed their cause of death. Her mother, father, and brother had all drowned on the flood of gas, that had leaked from a pipe, and filled their house while they slept. The girl had been at her friend's house watching The Book Thief during the time of death. Never had she imagined she’d have had no family when she woke up, just as Liesel had.
Over there they are taking pictures of the girl’s father: Jasin Shane. He is lying in his bed next to Alice Shane, her mother. Their sullen blue skin had caused the girl to freeze as she discovered their tinted faces- much too relaxed for any relief sleep could ever give. Their placid lips blue and starved, like the last wisps of oxygen had dragged them to their blanketed queen sized cloud, and into a quiet, eternal sleep. Peaceful for them, but leaving behind a thick, dispirited scene for the forgotten daughter.
Her brother, Jaden, is just now being turned over to reveal his pallor. Waves of sand upon his head had obscured his popsicle lips even though she’d found him first, and had caringly buried him in his blanket because her ever-tired brother looked cold.
Another fissure of loss snaked through me; it grabbed my throat and dragged it into my stomach in a reminder of the other girl’s loss.

Having seen enough, I surrendered to her favorite spot on the couch as I took in her end scene. Several images sat on a well-loved piano, one being a school photo declaring the girl to be Alieca. The eyes of Alieca’s photo, as well as my own, watched the crew carry out her mother, her father, then her brother. All saltwater remained in my pools, with no rivers forming, knowing I, in the face of Her loss, was much stronger than I felt, yet weaker than I seemed. But I was feeling a bit hollow myself.
Alieca’s life is going out the door, with only senseless material possessions as remains. Though those are technically the state’s, seeing as she is only seventeen.

Tragedy was always emotionally lessened when it had happened to someone else. Then the pain is detached. A knowledge of the destruction, rather feeling it.

An investigator walked into the room, “Do you have a place to stay Miss Shane?” he asked, “ I am afraid you can’t stay here tonight.”
“I’ll call my friend ...” maybe I can stay with her tonight. On the fourth ring she picked up. With my broken voice calling out my identity to the receiver her response to my tone came crisp through the microphone.
“Alieca, what’s wrong?!?”
I replied, “My family is dead.”

Description
(It hurts less when it’s)
Someone Else

I can’t help but feel a shrouded ache stab through the pit of me, sucking my life-force into it, in sympathy for this girl. She had lost everything. Standing rod still but for the occasional tremor outside her defiled home, whose sweet safety had suddenly rotted, as she had made the call. Her voice heavy on weak supports, for all she had drawn on for love and strength was the home’s taint; the evening’s immense discovery.
“My family is dead ...”

The arrival of the medics brought probing of her life and desperately fashioned walls by poking, prodding and drawing bits of it into vials for tests. To discover a shocked calm clutching her shell together and a headache she knew was too intense to be caffeine withdrawals. Her pooled eyes lined in darkened lashes held the officers’ gaze as she recounted coming home in a voice that echoed around the voids in her heart until it settled, reassured, into the officers’ living ears.

I thought of her report now, as I visually took in the details anew; her pain’s knife twisting in my chest again.
The examination of her family's bodies, along with the fact that the house had to be flushed from an alarming amount of carbon monoxide, had revealed their cause of death. Her mother, father, and brother had all drowned on the flood of gas, that had leaked from a pipe, and filled their house while they slept. The girl had been at her friend's house watching The Book Thief during the time of death. Never had she imagined she’d have had no family when she woke up, just as Liesel had.
Over there they are taking pictures of the girl’s father: Jasin Shane. He is lying in his bed next to Alice Shane, her mother. Their sullen blue skin had caused the girl to freeze as she discovered their tinted faces- much too relaxed for any relief sleep could ever give. Their placid lips blue and starved, like the last wisps of oxygen had dragged them to their blanketed queen sized cloud, and into a quiet, eternal sleep. Peaceful for them, but leaving behind a thick, dispirited scene for the forgotten daughter.
Her brother, Jaden, is just now being turned over to reveal his pallor. Waves of sand upon his head had obscured his popsicle lips even though she’d found him first, and had caringly buried him in his blanket because her ever-tired brother looked cold.
Another fissure of loss snaked through me; it grabbed my throat and dragged it into my stomach in a reminder of the other girl’s loss.

Having seen enough, I surrendered to her favorite spot on the couch as I took in her end scene. Several images sat on a well-loved piano, one being a school photo declaring the girl to be Alieca. The eyes of Alieca’s photo, as well as my own, watched the crew carry out her mother, her father, then her brother. All saltwater remained in my pools, with no rivers forming, knowing I, in the face of Her loss, was much stronger than I felt, yet weaker than I seemed. But I was feeling a bit hollow myself.
Alieca’s life is going out the door, with only senseless material possessions as remains. Though those are technically the state’s, seeing as she is only seventeen.

Tragedy was always emotionally lessened when it had happened to someone else. Then the pain is detached. A knowledge of the destruction, rather feeling it.

An investigator walked into the room, “Do you have a place to stay Miss Shane?” he asked, “ I am afraid you can’t stay here tonight.”
“I’ll call my friend ...” maybe I can stay with her tonight. On the fourth ring she picked up. With my broken voice calling out my identity to the receiver her response to my tone came crisp through the microphone.
“Alieca, what’s wrong?!?”
I replied, “My family is dead.”