They sit cross legged – together ‘cross the dirty floor they do little more than watch as wind let in through broken windows swirls the dust motes back and forth.
They hardly breathe; damp-laden walls, an unhinged door, the bed now home to six legged pests; each twists the guts – their tears threaten to undo them.
“I never thought,” she says to him. “I’d see the bricks or wood.”
“I thought I’d die in here,” he croaks.
But not a drop of blood was spilt, the bruises banished ‘neath – soaked up in hearts, distilled in minds so full of fear.
“And now?” she asks. “What can we do?”
“We kill the place,” he says, phosphorus stick pressed hard against the grating wall.
She crawls to him, it hurts to move through space so thick with sinew flexed and pinched. A hand, frailer than it might have been, her hand, now placed between his trembling knuckles – stills them, flicks this burgeoning flame through the twisted skein of youth so cruelly robbed.
They sit cross legged – lit up by fire; yet cleansed at last.