Oranges - Julia Crofton
I was kneeling in a pool of ashes. No I wasn’t. I was sitting on a curb, breathing in the ashes of the bodies burning around me. The curb was made of blackened stone, but maybe the black was from all the ashes. The stone stood as a reminder of the purpose of this place. Everything was made of stone so that it could not burn away as the bodies in front of me did.
It was night, and the scenes around me felt eternal. As if one night alone could not contain the misery and peace that was demanded of such a place. I could see the flames licking away the flesh of the people that used to laugh and eat and pray. Not even the mask covering my face could keep out the smell. The sense of suffocation caused by breathing in the remnants of another human being. I felt like I too was floating away with the wind.
There were screams and cries all around me. Mothers and wives being held up by their families as they wailed for their lost loved ones. The displays of grief felt nearly fake in their theatricality. The people I came with did not seem very affected by all the death surrounding us. I felt the weight of every ash, of every flame as if it were me being burned on those pyres. If I stared at my hands for long enough, they too would light aflame. I brushed them off on my pants and tried to suffocate the fire, but it would not be put out. It continued to burn despite my desperate efforts. It burned all night.
The smell of orange was the only thing able to pull my mind out of its disarray. The yoga instructor with me said it would help to keep me calm. I think it’s only use was to block out the scent of burning flesh. I laughed at this. That an orange and a flame have the same color. That no matter how much citrus I could smell, the flames would burn around me still. There was no dousing them. Nothing I could do to get rid of the smell or color or heat or sounds. The flames continued to eat away at what was real versus what was imagined. Suddenly, it was not just my hands in flames, but my whole body. They were everywhere. They were uncontrollable. They smelled like oranges.
I was walking around, looking at all the different families mourning different people. The bodies were piled atop wood. You could still see the expressions on the corpses faces. Some with mouths open, as if in a silent scream, raging against the death that took them. Others looked serene, at peace with their fate. There were mottled limbs that had fallen off the pyres. The smell of plastic being cooked too long in an oven.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The ashes of the dead were lining my lunges and cutting my access to the living world as if the dead wanted company. My breath came in pants as I tried to ease my panic, but everywhere I looked there were people wailing or bodies burning. There was no escape from this current of death.
-
I wake up gasping for air, looking frantically around myself as if my limbs are all on fire. I look to my right expecting to see my curtains charred with flames, but there is no fire anywhere. My window is open, the curtains blowing in the soft morning breeze. My limbs still tingle with the remnants of my dream, feeling the flames as a phantom whisper. There are oranges cut open on my bedside table. I must have left them there the night before and fallen asleep.
I throw the plate of oranges across the room. Hearing the plate shatter, I walk out of the room and feel the bite of the ceramic shards cutting into my foot in my attempts to flee the oppressive oranges. I run down the stairs and am faced with the package of oranges lying mockingly in the fruit bowl. The scent of something burning is heavy in the air. My mother is heating the oven up to bake cookies, but a Tupperware container has been left in the oven. The scent of the burning plastic drives me nearly to madness. I shriek and wail and fall to the floor, clawing at my face to escape the torment.
-
I wake up gasping for air, looking frantically around to figure out where I am. There is water on my bedside table, and a cool morning breeze whispering through the curtains. The lingering anxiety of my dreams drives me out of bed. I splash cool water on my face trying to abate the feeling of flames burning my skin. I wash my hands with lavender soap, never citrus, never orange. I have not used an orange scent since the cremation site. Not since seeing the neat rows of six pyres and six bodies with six families mourning. Not since I felt the smoke burn my eyes and inhaled the ashes knowing it was human beings I was ingesting. Not since the orange essential oil was the only barrier between me and the dead.
The bathroom was full of lavender and vanilla scented soaps and scrubs and shampoos. Citrus had been banished from my living space as I refused to face the dead again. I left them, and the orange scented oil in Pashupatinath. I would never return and would not ever see those flames again. I would never feel the phantom burns or smell the slow charring of the human body. I would never see the dark stone or the six pyres. I would never smell or eat an orange.
Julia Crofton is an English major at SUNY New Paltz. She is passionate about fiction in all regards, especially within the academic sphere. Her writing largely focuses on personal details and themes of grief. When she is not writing, Julia can be found reading and hiking.