Old Film, New Fire

We were all busy repairing things, working, surviving. Who had the energy to challenge what was already on the page? Then your generation left, and the matter went even more unspoken." Xu Zhixia flipped through the clippings and stopped at one faded photo. It showed the street after the fire, a fire engine parked by the curb, onlookers forming a circle. In the picture there was a small, thin boy staring up at the smoking window. His features were eerily similar to Lu Chen's as a child. She looked up instinctively. He was reading the newspaper with a face so still it gave away nothing, as if he had known about this all along. "You've seen these?" she asked. Lu Chen took the newspaper from Teacher Shen. His voice dropped. "Some of it."