So many of my memories are by a roaring fire: holidays, birthdays, Sunday dinners; voyagers returning home from uni., war, backpacking, broken marriages. We toasted and roasted and talked until the fire was only embers falling through the grate.

When I was little and the voyagers were big, I would fall asleep on the hearthrug, cushion beneath my head, cat curled by my side. No one even tried to get me to go to bed anymore, because when I was really little I used to sneak back again and again until they gave up. Only when I was fast asleep, would they carry me off to bed, confident I couldn’t return anymore.

In time I voyaged far from Hackney myself, but I would return to tell stories by the fire. Those days are long gone. Everything is long gone. All the voyagers, except for me. And Kitty.

Even the fire is gone. The hearth cold. The laws changed – no burning logs. I understood why, but I cheated now and then with little flashes of paper and dried leaves from my houseplants. A flicker of flame, of memory, a whiff of those great blazes and the gatherings of family and friends. 

Then some officious official was in my house for I don’t remember what and they saw ashes in my hearth. So an even more officious official came with an official piece of paper and blocked up my flue. I had to pay a fine, too. That was hard.

I put candles on the grate. Got an extension cord for the electric heater and put it near the hearth. Its wires glow and the candles flicker. Kitty and I draw near. The candle flames reflect in her eyes.

Now the officious officials want me to go to some ghastly care home built in the ‘70s, where there never was a fireside for people to gather around. Just a television. That’s the flickering light that people gather around now, where they don’t talk to one another because some actor or news commentator is doing the talking for them.

The officious officials were back the other day. One had pamphlets. He recited whole paragraphs from them as if he didn’t have words of his own, just pre-recorded messages. His partner would nod at pauses in his recitations. Then Kitty walked in and sat on the rug by the cold hearth and stared at them. 

The silent one pointed a finger at Kitty and the other flipped through pages in his script. ‘No pets’ was the upshot. That wasn’t a surprise to me. That would be too much like life, rather than cold storage. They seemed surprised that I wasn’t surprised. I just stared at them. Eventually, they went away.

I got a metal mixing bowl from the kitchen, moved the candles aside and set it on the grate. I burned the pamphlets in it. Kitty moved closer to the warmth. It was a very cold winter when Kitty died. 

She was on the hearth rug. I thought she was sleeping. Nearly nineteen, the oldest cat I’d ever had. There was no charge for cremating her. I was surprised. Vets are expensive; I expected some last whack for the fire. They gave me a pamphlet. I could buy beautiful urns to put her ashes in.

I selected the cardboard cylinder that came for free and brought her home in that. Her going took the wind out of me.

Next time the reciter of paragraphs and his mute sidekick came by, I actually looked at the pamphlets they left before I got the bowl from the kitchen. The care home was to expand into a former school that had once been a fancy home. Amidst the blather, there was a photograph of a room with a fireplace. It had pots of flowering plants in it. 

A person in the photo appeared to be deadheading them, had withered flowers in her hand. I didn’t burn the pamphlet.

When the officious duo inevitably turned up, I interrogated them. They were surprised. I’d never questioned them before. I knew about false advertising. They told me I could go and see. I did.

The building was so old, even the hallways had fireplaces. It must be hell to heat. I can’t see how using such a building could be a good use of public funds, but I saw the room in the photo. It had tall windows facing south that shone directly on the fireplace with the flowers. They were real. I pinched a leaf off.

I told them if I could have that room, I’d come. They laughed. Reciter recited a paragraph about the waiting list. I told them to sign me up for that room and I’d wait. They laughed again. I filled out some form where I added a lot of extra clauses. There’s nothing sacrosanct about a form.

It’s a pre-printed agreement. Agreements can be modified. I set forth my terms. If they wanted, the council could agree to them. Both of the officials were silent. They didn’t have a paragraph about that in any of the pamphlets they carried around.

I rooted the leaf. Added a spoonful of Kitty’s ashes to the soil I potted it in. It grew well.

Since I’m on a waitlist, the officious officials only come once a year, to see if I’ve died and they can cross me off the list, I guess. Silent sidekick retired. Reciter’s gone grey. Last time he came, he told me he’d been transferred and wouldn’t come ‘round again. I gave him the plant I rooted from the leaf. He looked surprised, but he left with it.

When the officials found me, the room smelled of smoke. The ashes of the roaring fire I had lit had gone cold. I looked to be asleep on the hearthrug, cushion under my head, curled around Kitty’s favourite pillow.

There were forms they had to fill out.

Margaret Anne Khoury

Margaret Anne Khoury is Canadian and a recent participant in the Homo Promos/Gay Authors Workshop workshops.