Things We Lost in the Fire

by Mariana Enriquez

Lala decided to be a Brazilian woman years ago, but she was born a Uruguayan man.

Andrea was the prettiest of us, the one who knew how to rip up jeans to make fabulous cutoffs and wore crop tops that she bought with money she stole from her mother.

At Andrea’s no one ever asked questions; her dad was almost always drunk and she had a lock on her bedroom door so he couldn’t get in at night.

This is just dropped in and it's horrifying

Paula didn’t smile because she was so thin that when she showed her teeth she looked like a skull.

He was the only one who could infuriate her. And, even so, they never really fought. He enjoyed her lies. She liked how he challenged her.

Still and grounded, they look like a pest, but when they fly and light up, they are the closest thing to magic, a portent of beauty and goodness.

Miguel hated the first few days in a new house, when there was still no TV or Internet, and he was in an anticipatory bad mood thinking of the calls he would have to make before everything was in order.

Yeah that's legit

The neighborhood wasn’t in fashion yet, but it was only a matter of time. It wasn’t too far from downtown, it had a subway station nearby and a reputation for being quiet. She’d have to enjoy it as long as the rest of the city remained indifferent.

Upcoming gentrification of the neighborhood

In one corner, though, the mesh had fallen. From there it was possible to look over and just see a sliver of the neighbor’s courtyard, four or five red tiles.

Title of the story - the protective barrier has fallen and now the neighbor's courtyard is visible.

Miguel had admitted to her that in his opinion, except for serious illnesses, all emotional problems could be solved by force of will.

Conflict

Paula brought her hands to her cheeks. She knew what to do in these cases. She had worked for a long time as a social worker. But after what had happened a year ago—after she’d been fired, after the hearing—she didn’t even want to think about taking responsibility again for lost children, damaged children.

What happened? What is she doing now? Does it relate to the death of her father?

But she knew what he was thinking, because it was the only thing anyone could have thought: she deserved to be fired. She deserved contempt.

Her thoughts about herself

She had a small, normal thought: that meant it would be easy to rob the neighbor’s house, and her own.

The idiot hadn’t had the conversation erased; all her years as DA had also accustomed her to that, to the impossible combination of brutality and stupidity she encountered in the cops she dealt with.

She’d never understood the formulas, which her father found simple and thrilling, but she never forgot that the black river along the city’s edge was basically dead, decomposing: it couldn’t breathe.

She detested those murmurings; she wasn’t flattered, they offended her. She didn’t want to be beautiful, she wanted to be strong and razor sharp.

“In his house, the dead man waits dreaming.”

“You know, for years I thought that rotten river was a sign of our ineptitude. How we never think about the future. Sure, we’ll just toss all the muck in here, let the river wash it away! We never think about the consequences. A country full of incompetents. But now I see things differently, Marina. Those people were being responsible when they polluted that river. They were covering something up, something they didn’t want to let out, and they buried it under layers and layers of oil and mud! They even clogged the river with boats! Just left them there, deadlocked!”

Sad people are merciless.

I don’t know why you all think that kids are cared for and loved.”