Today, I Play God

Image by Mike Newbry. Fiction by Bruce Kasanoff.

All Lisa could see was orange. Where yesterday the sun rose beautifully over the mountains, today the Gates of Hell consumed the entire sky. They said it was coming, she thought, but not this fast. How could it move this fast?

Her entire family was on the other side of that inferno, but all her memories seemed to be scattered within 50 feet of where she sat in her bedroom chair, simultaneously terrified and at peace. Lisa loved her house; it was her refuge. She built the pond surrounding her deck. She painted the mural in her daughter's room. She had picked every picture and item that made this building a home.

I ought to be running to the car with our photos, she thought. But she couldn't stop staring at the raging flames just now cresting the ridgeline.

"What happens after I escape?" she said out loud. "What then?"

"My husband hates me. My kids don't need me. My job bores me to tears. Even the dog runs more eagerly to my neighbors than to me. Why should I leave the only place that gives me joy?"

She was talking to God, to herself, and to anyone willing to save her. But no one was coming to save her. She had stayed too long. She was too close to disaster.

The evergreen trees outside her window were gorgeous. They rose above the rock garden she had created with her own hands, scrounging stones from the sides of hiking trails and digging up wildflowers from mountain valleys. Minutes from now, they would be dust and ashes. So would the chairs on the deck outside her window. So would the deck itself, and the railing she had designed herself.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust had always been a rote phrase. Today it was a harsh reality.

Then a thought edged into Lisa's mind: I played no part in my birth.

This insight expanded in her brain as fast as the fire had grown in the forest surrounding her community. Human beings come into existence through the luck of the draw. If we are beautiful or smart or strong or athletic it is because something occurred before we took our first breath. It just happened, outside of our control. But today, at this moment, she had a choice.

I can play God, Lisa realized. She could end her life simply by sitting in her favorite chair for a few more minutes.

OR...

She could intentionally give birth to a new life.

She could run to the car and create a life so unlike her old one. Instead of being a victim, she could be a savior. Instead of being powerless, she could empower others. She could build 1,000 gardens, or help to build 1,000 homes. She could reach out to help others, instead of waiting for someone to magically appear who cared about her.

Merely by getting up, Lisa could acquire divine powers. Her eyes looked across the room to her nightstand. For a change, the Audi keys were right there, next to her purse. She looked at the flames, almost comic in their scale and intensity.

Another minute went by. She felt at peace. For the first time ever, she felt powerful.

Not today, she thought. Not today.

52 seconds later, Lisa roared out of the driveway, excited to see just how fast her Audi was capable of going.

This story appears under the new Fiction section on my website, where you can find a few more of my short stories.