Nostalgia Is Heartless by Sarah Lahey

Author:Sarah Lahey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2021-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Four

Love . . . is . . . shit.

THE MID-MORNING SUN PIERCES the dusty windows of the greenhouse and floods the interior with a ruddy ambiance. The old wicker chairs and clay pots containing cool-weather herbs—cilantro, dill, sage—nestled on the worktables glow rustic and golden. The sun washes over the floor, turning the terracotta tiles a brighter shade. It hits Tig’s strained face, causing his eyelids to flicker.

He opens his eyes and considers where he is. He is surprised by how different the greenhouse looks from the floor; the undersides of the windowsills are unpainted, and the bases of all the light fittings are filled with dead bugs.

His mouth is dry, and his head hurts. There’s a hot spot on his thigh; Lupus is sleeping beside him. He pulls a pillow out from under his head and tosses it onto the bunk. Then he recalls what happened.

He pushes Lupus aside and jumps to his feet. He has been stunned before, but it’s a rare occurrence; people who come at him usually want to kill him, not stun him. He feels foggy. He holds his head in his hands.

The dog shakes herself and yawns.

“What the fuck has she done?” he says to her.

He moves to the window and looks outside, to where the glass house once was. The site is now a smoldering fire. “Fuck!”

The dog bounds out the door. Tig scratches the side of his face, then follows her outside.

Ash and smoke fill the air.

The glass house is no longer standing. All that remains of the old tree is a charred stump. The timber staircase smolders—hardwood, it’ll take days to burn—and a circle of the blackened foundations is still partly visible on the scorched earth. The metal framework that held the glass panels in place lies twisted and buckled on the ground.

On the southern side of what used to be the house, Tig sees a small pile of tools, the remains of Matt’s toolbox—an aperture wrench, a multi-tool, and a small High-Tech Autohammer. Quality tools, all made of steel and glowing red-hot.

He spots a charred chair in the herb garden, thrown by the explosion. He strides over to it, rights it, and leaves it on the ground nearby.

The fire crackles and occasionally spits out a chunk of molten glass. The heat is intense, so he steps back and leans against the stone wall of the bee garden. Lupus sidles up and Tig fondles her ear. A bee buzzes in the garden, but the surrounding forest is settled and quiet. He wonders how long ago it happened, and how loud the explosion was. What the forest thought of it.

He suspects they got away. That was the plan—explode the house and escape to the Source.

He grits his teeth and shakes his head. “Love . . . is . . . shit.”

It’s like slamming your fingers in a rotor door or smashing your head on a graphene filter. Like someone has cut open your chest and hacked off little pieces of your heart.

He looks at Lupus.

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