Fifty-five
She watched the flames mount higher and higher, playing with the wind. They consumed her house slowly, allowing her time to think.
She wasn't sure if she had meant to knock over the candle onto the scrolls. Now it was too late, but she wondered why she hadn't stopped it. Was she saving her work from careless hands?
Or was she burning the past to the ground?
The flames crackled, their heat close enough to tickle her face. She stared into them, a tapestry of blue and red, blood and sky, mixing together. The acrid smell of singed hair filled her nostrils as she took a step forward, one hand reaching out to touch the living death.
Fire seared her skin, sending her thoughts reeling back. She held her hand there, however, feeling the liquid heat flowing over her fingers, turning them red and black. Finally she pulled it back, staring at it in fascination as smoke rose, curling, from her burned fingers. Was this what it felt like to die in flame? She didn't really mind it if it was; it was almost peaceful, the lulling scent of death.
Was this who she was? A woman, standing, her hair and skin burning, fascinated by the pain? Was her life truly like this?
Sakura had always had a good imagination. Was she simply imagining this?
Maybe she would wake up to her mother calling; maybe she would go back to twelve again, have a chance to fix the mistakes. But she didn't think that she would change anything. It seemed natural.
She remembered a certain lazy sensei, turning up late one morning.
"Sorry. I got lost on the road of life."
No one had ever said any truer words. At least that was what she believed.
Because didn't everyone?
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Everyone gets lost at times.
Only some find their way
back to the path.