The tunnel went on forever, winding its way under the city. Jen had it on good authority that using the new tunnel would cut twenty minutes from the trip to the airport.  It was just as well; her mother had taken forever to get out of the house.
        “I can’t wait,” said Marcie, face alight with excitement. “Imagine me in Paris! Rome! I wish it was six months instead of six weeks!”
        Jen glanced at her father in the rear-vision mirror: he was quiet, as usual. She checked the clock; they would be at the airport with time to spare. She might even make it to the early aerobics class. 
        “Are you sure you’ve got the tickets?” asked Marcie again, turning back to look at Don.
    
Jen looked up to see her father nod. A flash of colour pulled her eyes back to the traffic. A small, red car had changed lanes up ahead. At the same time, a van veered to miss a stopped car. To Jen’s horror, the van pulled straight into the path of the red car, catapulting it into the path of a truck. Air brakes groaned. Sparks erupted like fireworks. A terrible, metallic screaming filled the tunnel. Jen braked, feeling the pull of the seat belt across her chest.  
        “We’ll miss the plane,” said her mother. Fire exploded from the wreckage. Jen threw open her door. “Run!” she screamed at her parents. “Run!”
    
Jen staggered back towards the tunnel entrance as it filled with black smoke and frantic people. Every breath burned, and her legs felt like she had run a marathon. About twenty cars back, she stopped to look for her parents.
     People bumped blindly into each other, sobbing and screaming, calling names into the chaos. Marcie and Don were nowhere to be seen. Surely they had got out in time…
    
A terrible sound rolled along the tunnel. Jen fled. Outside, it was like a scene from Hell: people staggered around, retching and sobbing, faces black with soot, eyes wild with terror. “Come on, Mum! Dad? Where are you?”
    
When the exodus slowed, Jen started to panic. Frantic thoughts flapped against the edges of her mind, like birds against a window. Where are they? Should I have helped them? Were they looking for me? Does it take long to die in a fireball?
       
“I don’t want caskets.” Jen glared at her Aunt Susan.  The fire had been too fierce to recover bodies, and she saw no point in pretending.
        “It’s not seemly, Jennifer. There have to be caskets. And flowers.” Aunt Susan’s ruthless efficiency had always terrified Jen.
        “But, they’re not there,” said Jen, appealing to Uncle Bill for support.
        He opened his mouth to speak, but Susan cut him off.  “Marcie would have wanted it done properly,” she said emphatically.
        There was no answer to that, so Jen surrendered.
    
She stood at the back of the chapel, hiding behind her sunglasses. A priest intoned platitudes over two flower-laden caskets that looked like over-decorated cakes. Jen closed her eyes and—not for the first time—wished she had died in the tunnel.
    
The house was very quiet when Aunt Susan wiped the last plate and put it away.  “It was a good wake,” she said, nodding with satisfaction. “Everyone came. Marcie would have been pleased.”
        Jen wanted to scream, break all the carefully stacked plates, throw the leftovers around the room. Instead, she walked Aunt Susan to the door.
        “Thank you for everything,” she said.
        “Don’t be silly. Just let me know if there’s anything else I can do.” Susan kissed her on the cheek and bustled off to organize her life.
    
Jen rubbed off the kiss, closed the door, and stood alone in the empty house. It was very quiet.
        “Are you sad, house?” she asked, stroking the walls as she walked slowly down the hallway. She stopped to look at a photograph of Marcie and Don standing by the front gate, proud newlyweds with their first home. Gently, she touched her mother’s sepia face.
        “Were you happy, Mum?” she asked quietly. “Did you like living here?”
        Marcie had nothing to say, so Jen wandered from room to room, leaning her forehead against doors, listening for the whispering in the walls. Later, she sat on the back step as she had as a child. The night sky had been so big then, a velvet-black dome sprinkled with thousands of fairy lights, and a fairy in each one. She looked up; the lights were still there, but they were just stars. Clouds scudded across the sky, and the stars went out. 
    
Jen’s friends called. “It’s not healthy for you to be moping around the house alone,” they said. “Come out to dinner.”
        Jen stopped answering the phone. How could she explain? Everything was grey, meaningless. She lost weight, stopped going to her classes, and only slept in brief snatches between the slow-motion movie of the red car changing lanes, the van swerving, the truck…
        Over and over again, she asked herself if there was something she could have done. Had she been daydreaming instead of watching the road? Was she driving too fast? Too slow?
    
Two months after the accident, Jen’s old cat, Missy, hobbled next door in search of better company. The plants were all dead, and there was nothing to eat. Jen took out the sleeping pills her

 doctor had prescribed in the days after the accident.
      
She awoke in hospital to the sound of intravenous monitors beeping with life. Groaning miserably, she opened her eyes. Standing on the end of her bed was a fairy.
        Jen blinked rapidly. The fairy fluttered her beautiful, gossamer wings and laughed. It sounded like bells. Small and sparkling, she was exactly how a fairy should be—if such a thing as a fairy existed.
        Jen felt her head. Her skull was intact, but the overdose seemed to have scrambled her brains. The fairy leaned forward.
        “Greetings, child of Earth,” she said, a beatific smile on her face.
        “Child of Earth?” Jen felt the room spinning.  “Are you from outer space?”
        “You are human,” said the fairy. “That means you are a child of the Earth.”
        “I guess so,” said Jen, suddenly very tired.
        “As such, you are mortal.”
        Jen closed her eyes.
        “Grief and guilt are your lot.”
        That was a weird thing for a fairy to say; more like something an angel might say, or a priest. Jen thought of ringing for the nurse, but it was too hard to find the buzzer.
        “Grief. Guilt,” continued the fairy. “There is a quota allowed for each child of Earth: the correct amount for the getting of wisdom. Too little and there is stagnation.  Too much and there is entropy.”
        Jen groaned. “I’ve gone mad,” she said to herself. “Stark, raving mad!”
        “Yes,” agreed the fairy. “Entropy is a state of disorder that will lead to breakdown of the system.”
        “I’m having a breakdown. Seeing things. Hearing things.”
        “Good,” said the fairy. “You agree. Now you are ready for redemption!”
        “Not so fast,” said Jen, closing her eyes. Sleep came like a black tide of blessed relief.
    
She was awakened by voices. At the end of the bed, Aunt Susan stood talking with a nurse. Jen wondered what her Aunt had done with the fairy.
        “Oh, poor darling,” said Susan, impressing the nurse with her dramatic impersonation of a concerned relative. “We should never have left her alone like that! We’ll have her at home with us from now on.” She went on and on with her plans for Jen’s recovery.
        Jen groaned.
        “Is she in pain?” asked Susan.
        Jen couldn’t hear the nurse’s answer. Maybe Susan was talking to herself.
        “Poor darling,” said Susan again, moving to the side of the bed. She stroked Jen’s hand.  “How awful you must feel to have been driving that car. Marcie always said she was…Oh, never mind. You’re going to be all right now.”
        What did Mum always say? wondered Jen, shifting so that her hand slid from Susan’s reach.
        “Never you mind, darling. Mothers all say silly things at times,” said Susan, patting Jen’s shoulder.
    
By the time her Aunt left, Jen’s rage was simmering in her belly like a lava pool.
        “Good!” announced the fairy from the foot of the bed.
        “What’s good?” asked Jen, scowling at the creature.
        “Rage is good. It burns away grief and guilt.”
        Jen turned her head to the side, ignoring the apparition. The rage continued to burn. It did feel good, like a breath of fresh air. Eventually, she drifted back to sleep. Again, the scene in the tunnel replayed...
        …a small, red car changes lanes. The van pulls across. The truck hits the red car with a terrible scream of metal and a rain of sparks.
    
This time, Jen found herself watching from high above the inferno. She saw herself pulling open the car door, calling for her parents to run; saw them fumbling too slowly with seat belts, opening their doors too late. Saw that there was nothing she could have done. Except die with them.
    
“The choice is yours,” said the fairy. “You can still die. Children of Earth often find it easier than living.” Jen felt the pull of oblivion. She opened her mouth to agree, to ask for death…Then she thought of Missy, faithful, old Missy, who had been there forever. “Not yet,” she said quietly, and fell asleep again. When she awoke, the room was empty.   Jen went home the next day. Missy was waiting on the doorstep. The old cat rubbed against Jen’s legs, purring contentedly, chirping in cat talk as if she had something important to say.
        “What is it, Missy?” asked Jen. “Have you been seeing things, too?”
        Jen opened all the windows, swept the floors, and washed her clothes. After she and Missy had eaten, they sat together on the back step, watching the stars.  
                                                                        @@
    
  
                       About the Author
     
        Kaalii Cargill lives in Victoria, Australia,
where she writes speculative and historical
fiction.  Her short stories have been published in Chimeraworld, Reflection’s Edge, The Deepening, Bewildering Stories, and other venues.   
    
   
    
                                          Copyright © Kaalii Cargill