Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story”

sometimes as high as 20% of meth labs that explode, thousands of houses are sold without the buyers being aware the house was formerly used for cooking meth.

All of the ingredients are highly flammable and unstable. Taken alone, or in a cooking environment, they can cause respiratory problems, skin irritation, migraines, death. When police clean out a meth house, they wear respirators, Tyvek suits, eye goggles, shoe coverings, and gloves.

Common ingredients in crystal meth include

The world has not ended on December 21st, but the town seems deserted, abandoned, and it is only a short step to imagining all the houses burned or emptied.

As my father and I drive, there are fires everywhere. People burning trash or leaves in their yards, leaning on rakes, nodding as we pass by.

He did not mention the other houses we saw, the burned-out remnants of trailer houses and old clapboard houses set back from the road, the charred signature of smoke where fire curled from the blackened windows.

the surface of small orange ponds where cattle leaned over to drink, their breath fanning the air

low valley other hills spread out like bruises. The valley has turned brown now with winter, and under the gray days the land lays dormant, the gray wind whistling over mountain flanks.