məuˈzeiik, or Q

It is nearing evening and tiger gens are starting to convulse on and cough smoke from every corner. Vandra hasn’t returned. By now, talk about the disaster is rife. It is all over the telly, it is blaring over the radio. I can hear the neighbors talk about it and wail in loud voices, describing the gory contents of their imagination; of trapped people, of mingled screams and hands that tried to shield, of bodies that had their breaths already sucked out of them. I am in my house, silent, my guts knotting and biting as I dial Vandra while convincing myself that she never passed Berger today, or that in the event that she did, she did long before or after that tanker tipped over. The operator says the same thing into my ear. No. I refuse to accept that. There are people that can’t just die, people whose lives steer past and weave about the arc mishap casts. Vandra is one of them. The thought comforts me. But as evening thickens the knots tighten into pebbles that multiply. I venture trying to imagine life without Vandra but the thought is too impossible to muster, too much to bear. I am in a vacuum, cold sweat starting to sheath me. My cell starts to ring. It‘s funny the way our minds make connections, how in those short milliseconds before my eyes swivel to the screen I conclude that it is Vandra calling and start to praise the lord. But I snatch it up and my heart sinks. It is Lala. There’s a tremendous rumble of noise around her but she yells above it. “Did you hear about the fire?”
“Yes,” I say.
“It is terrible, the pictures, an eyesore! And that is exactly where Vandra passes o.”
The pebbles have started to grow teeth. They sink them into my sides at the mention of the name.
“May God help this country-“
I say a yes to the “prayer” as confidently as I can just the exact moment she asks if Vandra is home yet. I stutter, trying to tell her I meant yes to another thing, that Vandra isn’t home yet, but not before she says, “Oh, she’s home? Thank you Jesus! I’ll soon be home too. Love you” in a rush and hangs up. Okay. So Lala will come within the hour and when she does, how do I begin to tell her our girl isn’t home?