Someone's son died in a structure fire, he was 39. His parents were out of town and he was cooking meth, that’s what the ATF detectives confirmed.
We found him by the back bedroom window, supine, legs curled beneath him as if he fell back from prayer. His eye sockets were empty, staring at a ceiling that's no longer there. His gaping jaw swallowed a 2,000 degree concoction of carbon monoxide and cyanide, singing and closing his trachea, initiating the brain and adrenal glands to release enough epinephrine to endure the last few seconds of his skin boiling.
At 10:30 am a cadaver dog helped us locate the remains. I slammed the fork end of my trash hook into the victim’s chest not realizing his body was under the mound of charred rubbish I was digging through.
“I think I found him!” I hollered to my friend.
A late spring breeze replaced the smoke and the off gassing plastics with a scent of sweet grass and fresh cut hay. It was a gorgeous morning, just hot enough to feel like summer. Longhorn cattle milled by property fence a few meters away and deer in the pasture far behind the house looked in our direction then returned to grazing. Four little birds chased off a grackle. It squawked and flew away.