THE SHEPHERD OF LIVING ASH

Seventy-three people were declared an acceptable weight of losses. Their carriage was welded shut on a viaduct above the ash lowland, and a track worker was sealed in with them by accident. At sixteen his personal fire had been written off as zero residue: it gives no warmth, becomes no weapon, and can barely move a splinter. There is enough panic in that carriage to build with, and he refuses to touch it, which leaves him seven minutes and the cold ash of a stove that went out at the last station.