Kristine Kathryn Rusch's "Fumes"

A new author and a welcome one to me. (She apparently publishes under several names and she's written a lot of Star Trek novels so actually, I might have read her before.)

"Fumes" deals with the aftermath of a fire. The writing is subtle, and what happened develops over the course of this three page story. The center of attention is a little boy, and I think his reactions to the fire and its aftereffects are about dead no. It is a small work, but effective. There is a longer work by Rusch in the newest issue of EQMM . "Fumes" was in the most recent AHMM.