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Embers
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Orange is the color of insanity.  

This sentiment, imparted to me many years ago by a drunken, 
would-be painter eager for us to "share the rainbow palatte," 
resurfaces now as I stand mesmerized by the wall of flames 
licking tall into the night sky.

It seems fitting that this story should end in a blaze of 
orange.  Like a signal flare seen miles around, it is 
testament to the madness that consumed generations of one 
family and burned others who ventured too close to the flame.

One man has already died here tonight.  

Some would call it justice, saying that he finally got what 
he deserved.  Others might call it vengeance, though they, 
too, would probably be happy to watch him burn.

I shiver under my blanket, chilled despite the fact that my 
skin is scorched taut by my ordeal in the flames. The hair on 
my arm is singed black and dissolves into ash at my touch.  

A nervous EMT hovers near my elbow with an oxygen tank at the 
ready, prepared to leap in if I show any signs of passing out 
again.  I struggle to remain upright, though my lungs feel as 
though they have collapsed in on one another, smothering me 
from the inside out.  The acrid taste of smoke still lingers 
bitter in my mouth, and the sour tang of it makes me cough in 
deep, wracking heaves that nearly bend me over with their 
force.  This movement sends my EMT into immediate action with 
the oxygen mask, but I wave him away.  

He shuffles back a few feet, still standing specter-like in 
my shadow, watching me with worried, fearful eyes.

I have shocked them all with my earlier actions, I know.  No 
one is quite sure what to expect from me anymore.  They 
probably fear that I have lost my mind.  Maybe I have. 

I would be in good company, were it to be true. 

My gaze returns to the red-gold conflagration, blurring now 
from the stinging tears that cloud my vision.  Sudden, loud 
cries erupt from the fire-fighting team as a three-story wall 
tumbles inward with a groaning crash, sinking slowly into the 
raging flames.  The fire roars and pops as it devours this 
latest course of rotting wooden beams.

I know I should go to the hospital, but I cannot seem to 
leave this place of pretty pandemonium.  This place where I 
last saw Mulder alive.

Men in great black coats weave to and fro with the hose, 
while another sits perched high atop a truck, barking 
commands through a megaphone as though he were directing some 
bizarre form of square dance. 

Eventually, the flames will be extinguished and I will have 
to explain myself.  The men who are now scurrying around the 
harborside are going to want some answers.  How did I know to 
come here?  Who had started the fire?

When they ask, I am not at all sure what I can tell them.   
The events of the past few days are so jumbled in my mind 
that I cannot fathom how to construct from them a cogent 
narrative, especially one that will provide an acceptable 
explanation for the loss of life suffered here.

How does one go about extracting truth from madness?  And 
whose truth should I tell?

Mulder, if he lives, would probably begin the story in the 
seventeenth century with a tale of lies and witches.  For her 
part, Lee-Lee Centara would probably say that the horror 
started in 1981, with the death of her uncle Abe and the 
trial that had set everything in motion.   The others...well, 
they have all been permanently silenced, their stories buried 
forever by the bright orange shroud.

So it is up to me, and I can tell the story only one way.  It 
begins ten days ago, when I awoke in Mulder's bed with the 
stubble scratches still fresh and tingling on my skin.