Charred remains of a modern society

Dictionary.com is one of my addictions!  I adore that site, and I love the fact that you crafted a nicely dark piece of descriptive writing from so light-hearted a word.  Funny how that works.  I've noticed something in this that occurs in some of your other works: there's a kind of ambivalence in terms of the story (stories) and I like that.  There's beautiful imagery, and then something dark...or the other way around; it's a bit like the kind of stuff I've read in Toni Morrison novels, where you are bathed in lovely, poetic descriptions of something incredibly moving, beautiful, or simply fun to read, and then there's a flip, like the story has a hinge, and you see the other side of it: often it's violent or shocking (It's amazing how many people so-casually die in Toni Morrison novels) and your writing does the same thing with the same impact; though what I've read is often a lot shorter than a Toni Morrison novel.  I like it when writing does that: it maintains a particular level of emotion and description, but then it moves on an emotional level, as if the emotion is the main thrust of the plot.  Here, the emotion remains pleasant, but is brought to an abrupt (and slightly cryptic) end.  You leave questions and don't answer them, but rather than feel dissatisfied, I'm driven to actually think more about the story.  Good writing does that: it tells a story and then leaves the reader with something to think about.  As a friend of mine once said: "It makes my kettle boil."  That's a good thing.  This is a great, potent piece of writing.