Ashes- A very short story

Ashes

“Constantine arrived at his apartment, only to find it alight with an angry red flame. As he gazed into the conflagration, he found himself feeling…feeling…”

Pandora’s voice trailed off into silence. Heaving out a heavy, resigned sigh, she released the black ink pen from her grasp, letting it fall with a small ‘clack’ onto her unfinished wooden desk. Flexing her aching right hand, she stacked the smudged piece of paper onto a precariously balanced pile of look alike sheets. Leaning back in her uncomfortable, swivel office chair, she thought of how to end this now problematic story.

She’d been writing for months with perfect consistency, but now that she’d finally reached the climax, her brain was on empty. It was antagonizing, having to write the same scene over, and over again! Why, in the past few weeks, her room had gained the appearance of a one-woman printing press! Papers littered the floors in piles like miniature, fragile campsites; wastebaskets overflowed with crumpled and ink-blotted paper balls; used up pens formed complex patterns on any available surface. To complete this picture of disaster, Pandora herself was a mess. Not a stinky, vomit-inspiring pile, nor a thoughtless, unproductive lump, but rather a raving, lunatic mess.

  She needed to get out. She needed to get out and she knew it. With a small grunt, Pandora pushed herself out of the poorly designed office chair. A largely audible crack ran up her spine as she headed towards her door, and glided noiselessly into the 2nd floor corridor of the Sea Breeze apartment complex. The actual sea breeze, however, was about a half hour away, down at the coast. Despite this obvious truth, no one seemed too eager to press the point. The residents only wanted to continue to entertain the idea that they lived in a beautiful, multi story sea cottage.

Abandoning her previous stealth, Pandora proceeded to pound down the stair well. Pandora was given an unpleasant welcome upon arriving at the first floor. The second she set foot on the landing, the stench of burning food, coupled with the din of arguing voices hit her like a bat to the face. Her opinionated down stairs neighbors always got into arguments. It wasn’t unusual for their supper to be the punishment for their quarrels.

Persuaded by the uncomfortable atmosphere, Pandora pushed through the front double doors and into what she was surprised to find was night. When was the last time she had slept? Becoming immediately oblivious to the world around her, Pandora began to drift off down a random pathway. This was her time to brainstorm, to create her perfect ending. Her thoughtful aura, however, was shattered by the mingled sound of an alarm and some muffled screams.

Pandora whipped around to face the apartments. The first floor room (directly below hers) where the bad-tempered couple lived was winking with a mischievous red light. To enhance this horrific scene, copious amounts of black smoke began to pour out of any and every opening, darkening the air. The apartments now looked as if they could’ve been painted by a morbid perfectionist. 

What Pandora had mistaken only minutes ago as another argument, had in fact been the beginning of a struggle against the now roaring fire. A polished red fire truck skidded up to the curb. In the blink of an eye, 2 firemen dove into the fire while 5 others pulled out a hose. A series of images flashed through her mind in the next several minutes, as if her brain couldn’t take in so much detail all at once. The fire blazed up in front of the building like a solid wall of flame, the blackened forms of her neighbors were guided from the fire, and then, gone as suddenly as it had come, the fire was gone. She found herself racing towards it all.

An hour later, Pandora was back in the second floor corridor, though now it looked more like a grenade testing ground. With a fireman close behind, she opened her apartment door. To her surprise, the room looked much as it had. The only difference was that everything was now charred beyond recognition, and a crumbling hole was punched into her floor. Little piles of ash, which had most likely been paper, decorated every inch of the space. Two particularly large, shapeless lumps of ash presented themselves in Pandora’s mind as her bed and desk.

She should’ve been upset, but she couldn’t help feeling joyous. She was practically nearing euphoria! She looked down at her feet, a pen, wonderful. She looked ahead a few inches, a half burnt piece of paper, exceedingly lucky. She picked up both, an exhilarated smile lighting up her features. She had her ending, her long anticipated climax. Savoring every moment, Pandora put the pen to paper.

“He found himself feeling happy. Happy that his previous mistakes were being incinerated, that he was being given a clean slate, that he had an excuse to start over. As extreme as people’s hateful disposition towards fires were, he couldn’t help but feel grateful. Feel…inspired.”