His hard-hat didn't quite fit on my father's head, so it perched comically on top, wobbling as he plunged his shovel into the rubble-- black wires of hair spilled out around his shoulders. Around him, sunlight poured all over the ash and debris, and what was left of the house's frame glistened silver bubbles of charred wood. My father, the bear, trudged toward me and pointed to his orange Gatorade. I handed it to him, as he took off his gloves to reveal two stubby reddish mitts of hands. To me, he looked more like a line drawing of a man in a coloring book, violently scribbled upon despite the boundaries by some odd 4-year-old with only a black crayon. Soot haphazardly sprung from his hair and beard, his goggles caked with dust-- he was a heavy black beast, save his pristine pink hands.
Though we had been at it all day, I felt like nothing had been accomplished. Despite how much I dug or hauled in a wheelbarrow to the giant dumpster in the front yard, it just seemed futile. The damage had already been done, and we had to deal with what was left. The roof had burned entirely, and I felt the sensation of being inside of something, but also being outside. The fakeness of it reminded me of trips we had taken to the zoo in my younger days and walking through the aviary. An improvised habitat just for show. The birds there could be identified by placards with their picture on them, and the plants each had little black aluminum signs that read things like:
(Syzygium aqueum)
Through the rubble, you can still make out what things used to be. Food Processor (Preparus choppium), Dollhouse (Imaginarium domesticus), Love Seat (Couchus amora). Our shovels clanked and sang and scraped, and the evening had begun to surround us. I watched my father quickly shovel a pile of black, crumbling cabinetry into my wheelbarrow as if into the firebox of a locomotive. With the sky melting around us where the ceiling had been, its clouds a roman shade of purple, it felt like we were moving.
