Noon: Part 2

She stopped looking at the city and looked down at her feet, then at the ground and gravel and bits of broken plastic and glass that littered the shoulder of the road. She didn't like when her father was upset. She didn't know what to do. She kept her eyes on the ground, trying to identify different things there near her. There was a lid and straw from a soda cup, crushed flat and browned with dirt. There were bottle caps and a crushed can. Next to the can was something small and white and round. It looked like it could be soft or brittle. She crouched down and moved her head closer to it. It had a yellowish color stained into it, and was small, about the length of half of her index finger. She reached down and picked it up very carefully. It was fragile and very light, like a piece of hard dust. One end of it ended smoothly and roundly, like her finger tip, but the other end had a hole in it and was burst open, as if something had ripped free and escaped from it. She looked inside it and saw a little brown husk of something within. A discarded skin. It was a moth's cocoon, picked up and blown by the wind, but she didn't know that at the time.

She dropped it back on the ground and stood up. She looked again at the city, burning. She felt a wind blow over them, hot and rich with the smell of something strong and unpleasant. It left a taste in her mouth, hot and plastic. Ashes scattered in the sky and blew like leaves. She was scared. She reached for her dad's hand and found it, fidgeting with his pant leg. She grabbed it and he held her hand.

They stood there for a long while, watching the city burn with the others on the side of the highway, the radio in the car broadcasting worried voices into the air around them as moths would bounce around a bright light.