Free If I Could Fly by Jill Hucklesby

his wrist, as if I’m a fly that has settled on his skin. He is walking away, still speaking into his headset, joining colleagues who are moving the tape to allow another fire engine through.
    ‘Will someone listen to me? There’s a sick man on the first floor!’ I scream, but the vehicle’s siren and the noise of the crowd are drowning me out. I shout until my voice goes hoarse. There’s nothing for it – I’llhave to take matters into my own hands and force them to follow me in.
    As I begin to run towards the burning building, I feel the intensity of the flames and start to choke on the smoky fumes pouring from inside. Any moment now, I expect a fire fighter to lunge at me and try to stop me gaining entry. Instead, I am almost crushed by several men in protective gear, running out of the building.
    ‘Get back!’ they warn and two seconds later there is a massive
CRACK
and the sound of splintering wood and bending metal and, suddenly, the whole roof falls in, in slow motion, sending clouds of debris in all directions.
    The crowd falls silent. Everyone stands still. Then there is coughing and hushed murmurs of surprise. When the dust settles, the blackened top floor is completely exposed, like a giant doll’s house. Only the shell of the walls and windows remain. Parts of the floor are also gone. If I ever get back inside my house, I will be looking straight at the stars.
    Acrid fumes of charcoal and wet wood hang in the air. The dramatic collapse has put out the fire, so the water hoses are being reeled in. A policeman is confirming that there are no casualties on the ground (what about inside?) but he asks for an ambulance in case anyone is suffering from smoke inhalation.
    I don’t understand any of this. My head is hurting trying to make sense of it. There was nothing flammable on the second floor – just empty rooms and floor boards. There was no electricity or gas to ignite a blaze.
    I don’t believe Dair would have started this fire. He was just sitting in his chair – too ill to move. Surely they would have seen him when they swept through each floor and brought him out! I can’t think about the other possibility: that he was still there when the roof fell in. That I’ve let him down so terribly and I will never set eyes on him again.
    ‘Yeah, it could be arson,’ the policeman in charge is saying into his radio. ‘There were reports of a hobo living rough here and evidence of personal belongingsfound on the first floor. Get this – it was all kept in a house made of books. Clearly a nutter. No sign of him before the roof went, no body remains, although he could have been hiding somewhere. We’ll do a final sweep through to secure it, then get the place boarded up. Sooner it’s demolished the better.’
    The hospital is steaming gently in the winter morning sun. Has my house been destroyed too? Did the strength of a thousand paperbacks, two Bibles, a Koran,
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
, a fishing encyclopaedia and
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
withstand the onslaught? Did those big-booted feet of the emergency team kick their way through my rooms?
    Have I lost my world for a second time – and the only friends I had in it?
    As the crowd begins to disperse, I notice something glinting on the ground and stoop to pick it up.
    ‘Finders keepers,’ says a voice close to me – honest to God, it’s Dair’s, I would swear to it – but when Iturn round all I see are the backs of strangers, moving away slowly.
    Clutched in the palm of my hand is a metal bottle top. It looks just like Dair’s special one. ‘Promise me you’ll keep fighting them,’ he said. I couldn’t promise, not just because of a metal disc.
Sorry, Dair. It’s not a key to Hive. It’s just a bit of junk. But I’ll keep it, because I know you want me to. Maybe they were still out to get you, just like you thought. Each time I hold the disc, it will remind me to stay strong and watch my back.
    I tuck it deep into my