The World in Flames

I kept a routine. Every morning, I left the tent and walked to the island’s communal kitchen. I prepared coffee by boiling water over an open flame, and then I mixed in used grounds. I strained the black juice through a sock, since the remaining coffee filters were reduced to pulp. Once I made the coffee, I brought a mug with me to the other side of the island where there were Adirondack chairs and a view of what remained of the Sydney Opera House.

I sat and watched the city in a perpetual blaze. Flames climbed up the Opera House’s concrete ribs. There were barely any buildings left. It was mostly ash and smoke.

I’d lost count of the days. I had no more understanding of the fire than when it started. It was a permanent fixture in my life, or what was left of it. Whether I was living or surviving was a question I often asked myself and when I did, I thought about Frances.

I like to think of us as longtime islanders. Frances was from Sydney, and I was from Manhattan. We’d met a few months earlier, she’d just graduated from college and was visiting the city. I had just broken up with the woman I had dated since the end of my senior year. I didn’t realize until it was over how much that relationship defined me, gave me meaning. I was stunned by how lost I felt, caught in a vacuum of days spent bar hopping or binge watching shows on streaming services. True Crime. Survivor Series. Anything but romantic comedies.

I’d gone to my favorite bar, Hardy’s, because I liked that it was always loud there, and people were jovial, even if I wouldn’t be, and drinking alone you could always lose yourself without feeling like you completely lost yourself. In walked Frances wearing a black velvet dress. It was an odd choice, given that it was summer, but the dress contrasted beautifully with her red hair and piercing blue eyes. I watched her walk from the door to a table next to mine and, miraculously, I found my voice:

Where are you from? What do you do? What did you study?

She’d studied English, and wanted to write children's books. I told her that was funny, because I was a paralegal, but I wanted to write too. She spoke softly under the throb of music, and I leaned in closer to hear her. I was inches from her pale skin and thick Australian accent.

Later that night, I asked if I could kiss her, and she nodded. We kissed, and held each other like no one was watching. I promised her a place to stay for the night, no funny business, but she said she had to go back to her hostel. She was returning home the next day.

On a whim, I asked if we could be pen pals. She agreed to the idea. She scrawled her address on the back of her receipt. Writing came naturally to us. We communicated more freely in letters than we had in person:

I can’t stop thinking about you, I wrote.

It would have been cool if we had more time to get to know each other.

Why can’t we?

We could run away together.

Yes! Somewhere remote. Like an island.

You could visit me.

So I planned a trip. I had the vacation time. Frances suggested a place for us to stay on Cockatoo Island. It was a former prison turned tourist destination. The website showed pictures of 19th century stone structures next to modern conveniences like porta potties. We could book a tent and explore the island. I loved the idea.

The morning after we arrived, Frances woke me up screaming, “Sydney’s on fire!”

Even before I left the tent, there was an extreme quality to the light that filtered through the canvas. The stench was powerful. I didn’t know what to picture, but I walked out and saw it for myself.

Across the water, fire spread in horrible, violent towers reaching upward. The sky was a deep orange, and the sun shrank to a speck.

There were only two other couples on the island. They were much older than us, in their 50s and 60s, the Ruths and the Johnsons. We all tried our phones, but there was no signal. No television either.

We waited for the ferry to come and get us, but the ferry never came. Boats sped by, but they didn’t stop.

The other couples clutched onto one another and cried. Frances and I stood together and stared across the water in silence.

For days we stayed in our tents, rationed food from the communal kitchen, or got together and prayed. I didn't believe in God, but praying seemed like the right thing to do.

Weeks passed. The air was thick with smoke. We used t-shirts to cover our noses and mouths, but the taste and smell of burning wood and chemicals was still suffocating. Then months. Frances stopped leaving the tent. I tried to comfort her, but she barely spoke. I remembered her talking about an ex-boyfriend when we met in New York, and I wondered if he was more than an ex, if he was who she mourned. I tried to make the best of things. She gave me nothing.

The fire never stopped burning. Near the year mark of our abandonment, I looked back from my seat in the Adirondack chair and saw Joe, one of the Johnsons, standing behind me.

“Hey, Joe.”

“Hey, Tom.”

“What’s going on?”

I nodded towards Sydney.

“Looking at the fire. It’s weird that it’s beautiful. You forget there were people in there.”

He paused and scanned the landscape.

“I’ve been thinking that as well.”

“I was obsessed with fire as a kid.”

I kicked at the arid ground, mostly dirt now.

“Me too. Growing up, we took trips into the outback. My father was part Tasmanian and taught me all this cool stuff, like how to start a fire with a pocket compass.”

“You think your dad’s OK?”

He nodded. “He died before the fire. My parents were older. They passed away last year. Sounds sad, but it’s not, really. It was their time. It’s my kids I worry about.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have any children. My family was back in the States, or was, last I knew. We rarely spoke.

“What happened to Frances? We haven’t seen her in a while.”

“She won’t leave the tent. I can’t convince her to go outside.”

“People don’t know what to do in these situations. These situations. There hasn’t been anything like this since the Bible.”

We looked back at the flames.

I realized I was late bringing coffee back to Frances. I worried it was getting cold. In New York she told me she loved breakfast in bed, and I tried to do that one small thing for her every day.

I picked up an empty can of beans by the chair and threw it out into the water. “I have to head back. Later, Joe.” 

“Later, Tom.”

It was quiet when no one else was around. I didn’t hear any animals. I hadn't seen any birds. This was Cockatoo island. Where were the cockatoos? Where did they go?

Inside the tent, Frances was lying awake in our shared sleeping bag.

“You’re up,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Joe was asking about you,” I said. “Maybe it’d be nice to get out and socialize.”

“I don’t want to see it,” she said, flatly. “It’s enough that I can smell it.”

***

On the night we arrived, Frances and I explored the island. We brought our bags and walked past riveted metal protruding out of the ground. I thought they looked like found sculptures. The sky was cloudy. Sydney glimmered across the water.

We climbed onto old cranes and swam in a slipway. The place was an industrial graveyard for the prison that once stood there. I was curious about the history and excited for this time with Frances. I’d felt an instant connection with her in New York. Each moment near her felt charged with possibility.

We found the prison’s old communal kitchen with a stockpile of non-perishables and sat at a table next to a decommissioned fireplace. From my backpack, I pulled out a bottle of whiskey that I had bought in Sydney. I poured some into a couple of ceramic mugs I found. We took the mugs along with us as we ventured further into the island’s dark corridors and wandered around the former buildings.

The entrances to the cells were locked. The steel bars which had kept people trapped were rusted but still strong. I started pretending there were escaped convicts hiding in the shadows.

“Stop it!” Frances said, laughing.

“Are you scared?” I said.

“It’s creepy in here,” she replied.

And then, more seriously, “I don’t like surprises.”

I thought we were picking up where we left off, but she didn’t say much after that or when we got back to the tent. It wasn’t clear what she wanted. I moved in to kiss her and she kissed me, but she didn’t touch me. She just lay there.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“It must be something. We planned this trip for months. It seemed like you wanted me here. You wanted to be with me.”

“I did.”

“Then why won’t you touch me?”

She didn’t respond.

“I miss the person from our letters,” I said, and left the tent.

It was winter and cold at night. Our tent was one of dozens, but the rest were silent. I wasn’t sure if anyone had heard us talking. I wasn’t even sure if there was anyone else on the island. It wasn't until later that I met the Ruths and the Johnsons.

It was off season, an off night.

I went back into the tent and told Frances I wouldn’t kiss her again. I’d stay on the other side of the tent. And then the next morning, the fire started.

***

“It’s only a matter of time,” Frances said to me the morning I was late with the coffee. “We can’t live like this much longer. We’re trapped.”

“What can we do?” I said. “I’m trying to survive.”

Frances didn’t respond.

I left the tent and went for a run. I did chin ups on the riveted metal. I wondered if it would be better if I moved into another tent. Left Frances alone. But who did I have left? Who did she? It felt painfully American, but I thought I owed her my hope. My optimism. I was the one who made the trip.

I studied the history of the island written on placards. It was one mile long and a half mile wide. The cockatoos fled when they cut the trees for logging. There were four recorded attempts to escape from the island when it was a prison. Three were successful.

I walked back to the tent. There was light rain and fog surrounding the island. Sydney was invisible through the plumes of smoke.

I called out to Frances and she stuck her head out of the tent.

“It’s raining,” she said, and smiled. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled.

I coaxed her out of the tent and we played a game of Marco Polo in the slipway. I searched for her through tufts of gray smoke. She laughed like it was the first time we met.

“Why can’t it always be like this?” I asked.

“Why can’t you be happy with how it is now?” Frances said.

I splashed her and ushered her back into the tent. I ran my hand down her arm and told her that I loved her.

“Don’t say that,” she said. “This isn’t a time for love.”

“Why not?” I said. “Isn’t this as good a time as any?”

She didn’t respond.

I lay down on the sleeping bag, laced my fingers behind my head and looked up at the ceiling. Her history was a mosaic of missing pieces. So was mine, but I was willing to share. How I got into a fight with my family before moving to New York. How I stopped returning their calls and regretted it, now more than ever. I wanted to feel like she might care.

But she stayed silent. She rested her head on my arm. I didn’t mention my family. Instead, I told her about the history of the island. The missing birds. The attempted escapes. The stories I used to write. Funny little stories loosely fictionalizing my life. She said she couldn’t write children’s stories any more.

“How about we rest?” I said and closed my eyes.

There was still fog when I woke up, but it was lighter. I gently lifted Frances off my arm and walked out of the tent. I went to the edge of the island and looked out at Sydney.

I could still see the flames lick the fog. I started to cry, not for Frances, but for myself.

I turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

***

We all wondered about the cause of the fire. We got together during the first nights of the fire and speculated.

The Ruths were religious. They were convinced it was God’s revenge on humanity. They were the ones who encouraged prayer and they were the ones with speeches about how the fire was payment for mankind’s sin, talk which I thought brought on Frances’ dark moods. She was Catholic, and I took that to mean that she was conditioned to feel guilt. I was conditioned too with my Jewish upbringing, but in a different way. Frances got quiet and went inward. I wouldn’t stop talking and moving, unable to sit still with my guilt.

The Johnsons had their theories about the fire — ecological catastrophe, political coup — but they seemed unconcerned with blame and even less concerned with sadness. They looked spry and were generous with their affection towards one another. In their company, I nudged Frances playfully, but she wasn’t amused.

Their stance seemed odd, but over time, it made sense: there’s only what is. Resisting causes suffering, so why not accept?

I hoped Frances and I could be like the Johnsons.

***

When I walked back to the tent, Frances was gone. Her clothes were strewn on the floor. The sleeping bag was pushed to the side. I wondered where she went.

I ran past the ancient buildings. I checked the porta potties. I searched the ground for tracks, and yelled out her name, but there was no reply.

The Johnsons came out of their tent.

“What's wrong?” Joe asked.

“Have you seen Frances?” I asked.

“She told us she was going for a dip on the Sydney side,” Joe said.

That was where the convicts escaped.

I took off running.

***

The first few days, I saw people in Sydney run into the water. I couldn’t hear anything, because of the distance, but I watched as blurs — people, maybe animals, too — ran from the fire into the dark. Eventually, piles formed on the shore. Figures didn’t run into the water anymore. It was just the fire.

***

When I came out of the woods onto the Sydney-side beach, I saw Frances swimming towards the fire.

“Frances!” I yelled.

She kept swimming.

I threw my clothes off and dove into the cold water. She was ahead of me, but I felt that I could catch her.

I got out to where I had seen her last. I thought I could see her shadow, down beneath me. I flipped up my legs and dove down.

As I went deeper, I could swear I saw her black velvet dress in the darkness below, the one she’d worn the night we met in New York. I reached for its hem and it glinted in the light from the fires reflected through the waves.

I came up gasping for air. It was raining again. I could hear the hiss of water connecting with fire.

I tread water and closed my eyes. For one small moment, everything felt OK. But then I saw the dress again in my mind’s eye and saw her sinking shadow.

I tread water, waited, and then tried my luck, one more time.