Antonio

I remembered it all.

The soot lingered in the air. I could taste it - gritty, grimy. My teeth grated against each other, trying hard to clear my mouth off the dirt that entered. The air was filled with the stench of burnt plastic making breathing difficult. My lungs heaved, craving for oxygen. Every ounce of fresh air counted. Yet, what mattered the most was protecting her.

The woman whom I married, vowed to protect.

When I parked the car outside a few seconds back, all I heard was that sound. Loud, booming. It pricked the insides of my ears. I felt my ears bleed with the constant ringing. I don't know if it was from gunshots or a blast. But I knew its epicenter - my office.

I felt a wild, earth rattling boom. My car's window and the insides shook upon impact. I too held onto my steering while my mind processed the information. She ran inside. Her curiosity had the better of her and she bolted into my office.

The area around, of parked cars and storage units nearby, all rattled with what felt like an explosion. Car alarms cried in unison, metal doors of storage units shattered harder, thundering the area in its aftermath. Fire escaped through the window of my office building. Tattered, burnt curtain pieces and carboned papers flew up.

I could hear cries - laments for help. Yet, my thoughts didn't travel towards it. It went for the woman inside. Was she safe? Did something happen to her?

My heart dropped. My feet felt heavy. I ran towards the glass door. The entrance was already shattered. Crunching through the glass, I walked towards the room which once bore the words on a golden doorplate - Moralez Enterprises.

The once transparent glass resembled a smokescreen. Soot and smoke filled the room. The metal doorknob was hot. My worst fears were rearing their head. I saw bodies lying across the floor as if they were garbage. The smell of burnt flesh seared my nostrils, My mouth dried, pleading for water. I couldn't recognize anyone. A black dress on an overweight charred woman confirmed the death of my receptionist.

I crossed over bodies, blood and flesh scattered around like someone tossed out rose petals. Scarlet and black colors, of blood and ash, painted the room, marrying one another at the ceiling and raining down. I searched for the red dress she donned today. I blinked as the heat, trying to clear the dark cloud of soot lingering and rested on my eyelids and waterline. My vision heated up. Lungs ached and pulling the skin around to suck in air. My kerchief wasn't enough to hold off the fumes spread in the air.

I dunked my sleeve into a jar of water that rested on the side of the reception. It was the only thing that seemed to have remained unscathed. Every other thing and being inside was charred, dead.

With my wet sleeve held over my nose, I walked in. My face was melting under the impact of heat. Inside my cabin, the fire subsided, the impact seemed less. I never believed in God but that that moment, I prayed for her wellbeing. Her survival.

Some faces were recognizable. But the burnt injuries to their bodies were enough to make them succumb.

What I couldn't trace was her.

Where was she?

A painful groan emerged from behind my desk. My heart paced up as those bloodied legs came into view. The rest of the body was still behind the desk.

I recognized those red heels. It was her favorite. Blood gushed from the slits on her legs. Her red heels began and ended on her crimson painted legs. My heart refused to accept, my legs refused to walk ahead and my mind refused to acknowledge it.

One more gurgled moan and I quickly darted towards her body. Elena was laying in her bloody wetness. Her red dress matched the tiles, all soaked in the same color. Her whispers were inaudible. After several taps on her cheeks and rattling her limp body, it remained irresponsive.

I carried her in my arms. Her arms didn't clutch me around my neck as she used to whenever I carried her. It hung away from her body. Sadness and heartache crept tossed over my chest. I never carried her across the clichéd threshold. I should have. Now I was carrying her out of it.

My wife was unconscious. She wasn't dead. I refused to accept it.

Suddenly her body floated upwards, dripping blood all over me. My white shirt was drenched in the same colored fluid as hers. I saw my hands being reddening with the same hue of red. Gasping for air, Elena stood up, mustering the last ounce of breath and strength.

Her hoarse voice was clear. She pointed her blood dripping finger at me, holding her stomach, teary-eyed. "You did this to me. You did this to us..."

Holding her stomach, she wailed before falling on the floor. A loud crack when her head hit the marble floor.

That sound was enough for me to gasp. That sound was enough to break open my cemented eyes.

I saw it again. The same incident. The same nightmare.

For the past two years since holding Elena in my arm one last time, this scene played in a loop every night. The incident was a reminder of my failure. The blood, the explosion, the smoke and the fire. All came alive every night, dancing around my eyes, blaming me for my wife's death. Although she was dead the second she walked inside the office, my guilt has transpired to make her feel alive. Every night, Elena lived, smiled and playfully punched me, only to be dead moments later. Only to blame me, seconds later.

Our allies had betrayed us. They gave up my location, thinking I would be blown away in the blast. My life was saved when Elena took to the door first. The collateral in the cartel business.

Although every single man responsible for the leaked information was burned alive the same way Elena suffered before breaking her ties with life, it never bought me solace. The guilt lingered. It couldn't be washed off with revenge. Elena remained nested in my subconscious, never leaving my side. Never letting me move on.

Since her demise, I had made up my mind to leave it all. Go somewhere where her thoughts wouldn't hurt me. I was foolish to assume things that remained etched in my heart and mind would allow me to move on. Wherever I would go, she would follow.

~

The pale blue sky with light pink hues surrounded the balcony I stood in. Birds venturing out from their nests, They tweeted in short and long bursts of calls, welcoming the new day. I stood mesmerized by the flocks of black canopy that floated over the deepened pink tainted sky, growing smaller and smaller.

A loud clang from the metal gates, creaking at their hurtful hinges from the rust reminded me of the time. The help must be getting in for work from their cottages. The guards must have opened the main gates for them after spending their nights in their humble abodes.

I wondered if they were able to sleep after a laborious day or did they too thrashing around on their beds the entire night with the guilt of losing a loved one swirling inside.

The metal gates bellowed to life again, diffusing the mellow silence of the morning. I watched as the guards pulled open both sides of it to widened. It was only done for vehicles to pass.

Eying the green carpet of trees that encroached in and around the house, I watched the horizon to see who decided to declare themselves at such an early hour. My peripheral vision caught a black Maserati float from inside the parking into the green lushness before disappearing.

Then I heard a knock on the door. A determined thump, to be precise. It took me a couple of seconds to walk over from where I stood, amidst which the thumping increased. Louder and intense.

Upon opening the door, my eyes darted over to Maria. She stood in her robe, anger swirling across her face. It turned her morning dewy face, crimson. I have seen my mother angry on various occasions but never this early and never with this shade.

Walking inside, I looked over my shoulder. "So early?"

She walked in. Her footsteps were loud even though she only wore bedroom slippers. Holding my elbow, she turned me around and swished her cold palm across my face. Surely, she didn't intend to slap me. It was a miscalculation from her end in evaluating where my jaw started and where my head ended. I blamed it on her morning grogginess.

"What the hell..." she looked at me, unapologetic.

I was confused to understand her implication. "What now?"

Walking away from me, she trotted towards the balcony where I stood moments ago. Looking down, she exhaled loudly. A grunt followed but no words.

"If you fall from here, there won't be a doctor on this planet to fix you," I conveyed my fears.

Her laughter floated away into the open. Turning around, she clenched her hands over her chest. "If only you are this fun with your wife too."

My eyebrows intertwined and rose. Unable to decipher her puzzle, I asked. "Stop playing puzzles before daybreak and give it to me straight."

She walked in and held my hands. "What did you say to Valentina, Antonio?"

Running over every conversation that I had with her I nodded sidewise, conforming to my inability to recollect any. She sighed, slanting her head in a disappointed nod.

"Well then someone said something," her hands wiped away the night's sleep and her head tiled to mimic mine. "She left for her father's place today morning."

~~

Babies

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S