We pass around the marshmallows and Tony's a fricken genius.
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The flames lick and spit, and the house kneels in slow, majestic stages. The back half collapses first, a cheapie addition that's fifty years younger than the rest of the place. The front porch follows in the aftershock, and it sends a constellation of embers skittering towards the marshmallow-roasters, who beat at each other's coats until they're all extinguished.
As the resident crip, I've weaseled my way into one of the kitchen chairs, and I've got it angled to face the heat. I sit close enough that my face feels like it's burning, and I turn it to the side and feel the delicious cool breeze.
The flames are on the roof, now, and I'm inside my own world, watching them. They dance spacewards, and I feel a delicious thrill as I realise that the bugouts are not there, that the bugouts are not watching, that they took my parents and my problems and vanished.
I'm broken from the reverie by Daisy Duke, who's got a skimask on, the mouth rimmed in gummy marshmallow. She's got two more marshmallows in one three-fingered cyclist's glove.
"Mmm. Marshmallowey," I say. It's got that hard carboniferous skin and the gooey inside that's hot enough to scald my tongue. "I *like* it."
"Almost New Year's," she says.
"Yuh-huh."
"Gonna make any resolutions?" she asks.