Emmy frequently had to wonder if she might prefer to kill herself rather than be subjected to the kind of natural disaster that would force her out of her home and into one of those gymnasiums or community centers that people were relegated to if and when their abode was burned or flooded. Some people laughed at her if and when she ever had the gall to say such a thing out loud. They tried to tell her that if a situation like that truly happened to her, her vanity would go out the window and self-preservation mode would kick in. Emmy didn’t have the patience or cojones to tell them they were full of shit and didn’t know anything about her at all. That no matter what the circumstance, she would honestly rather die than be seen uncoiffed/generally slumming it.

Like all or most things, this refusal to be seen as anything other than “glamorous” by the “public at large” could be traced back to her childhood. After all, both of her parents were obsessed with appearances. Not even just physical appearance, but “seeming” a “certain way.” And that way required, among other things, always looking pristine. One’s “best.” If Emmy failed to “comply” on that front, the result was usually catastrophic. Which is to say, highly emotionally damaging. She supposed she ought to just be grateful it wasn’t physically damaging as well. Though she reckoned that probably the only reason that neither of her parents ever attempted to smack her around is because they didn’t want to damage her on the outside. That was the only thing that mattered to them. Certainly not her “inside.” Her emotional well-being.

Emmy tried to tell herself that it wasn’t all her parents’ fault. They were just doing what “felt right” to them based on the tools they themselves were equipped with by their own parents, who were far more callous and “appearance concerned.” Because that’s how it goes with the generations. The further down the line in the history one gets, the meaner it gets as well. Chalk it up to how hardened people had to be “back in the day” if they wanted to not only survive, but also succeed. Emmy’s grandparents had succeeded so well that they were able to pass down the fruits of that success to Emmy’s parents, who took their responsibility as “elites” even more seriously. Hence, the strictness with which Emmy’s parents operated when it came to how she looked. Presented herself. Everything about her had to be just so.

By the time she was sixteen, Emmy had already been plotting her escape from this life for years. Her parents, of course, had “grand plans” for her to go to college. An Ivy League, obviously. Emmy, on the other hand, planned to run away—as far and as fast as she could—the day she turned eighteen. A high school diploma was more than enough to get by as far as she was concerned. Besides, if she felt it wasn’t, she knew that a trade school could always be an option. Maybe she would do something basic, like get a cosmetology license (in keeping with the vanity motif that had loomed over her entire life). There were always jobs in that field. Though her parents would surely “die” at the notion of their precious “property” doing something so…déclassé. Which, she supposed, is why she would make sure they never found out. For a major part of her escape plan was to never be “discovered” by them again. If she was, she knew she couldn’t handle it. That she wouldn’t be strong enough to resist their insistence upon her return to the “real” world. Which, to them, was the ersatzness of their world.

And this is how Emmy had ended up in a remote part of Northern California dominated by redwoods that were hardly immune to the ravages of fires, whether “wild” or manmade. Since, for whatever reason, that saying about how some people just want to watch the world burn often held truest in California. Indeed, it frequently seemed like all the fires she heard about turned out to have as their “origin source” not a weather or electrical cause, but a person. Whether that person was a pyro or just a careless git, the end result was the same: total destruction. Of life, of property, of hope. In her small town in the middle of nowhere, nestled amongst that endless sea of redwoods, Emmy was in constant fear that she might be the next victim of this ever-increasing phenomenon in the Golden State. That she, like so many others, would be forced to evacuate. Worse still, forced to do so when she least expected.

In the years since she moved to this remote town to escape her parents further infecting her brain with a false self-image, Emmy had conceded to putting together a “go bag.” Only hers wasn’t filled with nonperishable food items or blankets or a flashlight or camping gear or a first aid kit. It was filled with an array of beauty products she would need in order to sustain her “usual” appearance. Because no matter how long she had been away from her parents, she would never truly be able to “deprogram” from what they instilled within her so early on: that looking in any way “ugly” was a disgrace. A sin. A crime even graver than setting a fire. That’s why she always thought to herself that maybe suicide would be the be the better option. That it would be so much less of a mind fuck than trying to decide if she should actually dare to be seen within a context that didn’t allow her to “self-curate.”

She kept waiting for the inevitable day when that fire would come, and when, as everyone told her, “self-preservation mode” would automatically kick in and outweigh any and all former clingings to vanity. But she knew they were wrong. They didn’t understand the extent to and efficacy with which she had been conditioned. That it would truly feel as much like death to her as actual death to ever be seen all disheveled and unmade up in one of those poorly lit gymnasiums or community centers where victims of disaster were shoved. And no, among the donation piles never seemed to be makeup or moisturizer of the high caliber she required to look her best. So she put those in her “go bag.” The one she knew she would never use. Not because the fire wouldn’t come sooner or later, but because she would still rather burn alive in her own home than risk being unleashed into the wilds of public scrutiny without her best face constantly forward.