The First Explosion

I was in the city when my brother's wife Miranda called. I think he killed himself she said. Did that mean he wasn't dead? Or did it mean that she didn't know how it happened? Maybe he just disappeared. She kept feeling her words in the back of my head like a stone in my shoe. The terrible silence of a depopulated landscape. From where we stand we can see a big building well inside the city limits. A dormitory at the college ranging with flames. We can't see fire trucks or firefighters but their sirens scream across the sky. Holy moly my dad says and that's when we hear the first explosion. Not peace or restfulness