Facts

I've been working on a series of short memoirs and snippets of stories - you can find my earlier memoir piece here. Sometimes weeks go by and I'm wordless, and sometimes words pour from me like thick water. Last night was one of those times. 

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"I'm a fact collector," he said. "I understand," she said. 

Earlier that day, when the clouds had slipped between grey and white and sky, he pulled the last blank index card from the box. He wrote on it, "I've collected a life of facts. This is the last." Folding down the top left corner in case he needed to find it again, he filed it in the back of the drawer with the others, and closed the door. 

He would not need to find the fact again. 

One year later, when again the clouds had slipped between grey and white and sky, the wind was interrupted with smoke; dark, as though the earth had finally caught the shadow of itself. Pieces of facts danced over the flames -- flying from the empty skeleton of a house that was.  

Handfuls of words fell into ash that knew everything and meant nothing and could never be found again.