Free The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel Page A

and demons, but I employ no demons. There are fires, yes, each door burns. I’ve started none of these fires, not even the one that burns my own door. And just as I cannot put out my own, I cannot put out theirs.
    â€œI have tried. I’ve carried buckets of water to these doors, but the more water I splash on the flames, the bigger they get and I have to turn away in the throbbing torture of it all. I am not the ruler of hell. I am merely its first and most famous sufferer turned custodian with the key to the gate in my back pocket.”
    Mom sighed for us all. “You’re such a sad little boy.”
    â€œThat ain’t what I thought hell would be like at all.”
    â€œWhat did you think it would be like?” Sal turned to me.
    â€œDon’t know. I guess I thought demons. I thought proddin’ with cattle rods. I thought just a lot of blood. The way you describe it, it’s even more frightenin’.”
    â€œYou know where the name hell came from.” He crossed his hands on his lap. “After I fell, I kept repeating to myself, God will forgive me. God will forgive me. Centuries of repeating this, I started to shorten it to He’ll forgive me. Then finally to one word, He’ll. He’ll.
    â€œSomewhere along the way, I lost that apostrophe and now it’s only Hell. But hidden in that one word is God will forgive me. God will forgive me. That is what is behind my door, you understand. A world of no apostrophes and, therefore, no hope.”

 
    6
    Our torments also may, in length of time,
    Become our elements
    â€” MILTON, PARADISE LOST 2:274–275
    A COUPLE YEARS ago, a woman sold me a time machine at a yard sale. It looked like an ordinary window. The wood spiked along its sides, a result of it being hastily and carelessly removed from the house it once sat in. The glass was filthy, and tape was placed over the hairline crack in the bottom pane.
    â€œI could tell by lookin’ at ya that you got some business needin’ to be done in the past,” she said, her faded American flag scarf flapping in the breeze. “Lucky for you, that there winda only opens to the world we done had, and I’ll let it go for what it costs to buy a six-pack. You ain’t gonna find time travel cheaper than that.”
    â€œDoes it really work?” I asked.
    She spoke kindly, if not with some pity, “What we doin’ here, mister?”
    I scratched my chin through my matted beard. “You’re selling me a time machine.”
    â€œYou don’t have a problem with that?” All her wrinkles seemed to be pulled up with her arched eyebrow. “I got a cane over there you might like. Got some shampoo too. When’s the last time you washed this hair of yours?”
    She redirected her hand to fan her face. “I hate this damn heat. I mean just look at this ground beneath us.” We both looked down at the cracked earth. “You know another town ’round here has gone completely dry. Everyone in it had to pick up and move away.
    â€œI remember a postcard of Arizona I saw when I was a little girl. Beautiful blue sky, some flowerin’ cactuses. It was the type of place you’d wanna drive your convertible in. A good life place. Turned out, it ain’t nothin’ but another hell.” She glanced from me to the time machine. “What year is it you’re headed to?”
    â€œ1984.”
    â€œOf all the junk I thought I’d be sellin’ today, I never thought I’d be sellin’ a time machine.”
    After I’d given her the money, she mumbled with just a bit of grief, “You know it’s not a real time machine, right?”
    I nodded and started to drag the frame back toward my trailer.
    When I got home, I used Grand’s old pocketknife to carve May 1984 into the sill.
    If I was going to travel back and see my family, I had some cleaning up to do. I went inside the trailer and slipped out