ashes

The markets eventually recovered, as they always do, with even bigger booms rising out of the ashes of the last one.

The site secures copper that would otherwise be wasted from households and scrapyards, or even the ashes from burned household waste.

Then, teetering on a step stool, I slipped the box onto the top shelf of the hall closet, right behind the Christmas wrap and the three urns containing the ashes of my dead dogs.

Building permits are grinding slowly through the bureaucracy, hammers are swinging and a new Altadena will one day rise from the ashes.

In some cases, families discovered they had been given the wrong ashes.