I
was terrified and mesmerized all at once. The flames were massive, bouncing and
dancing as if they were alive. As much as I knew I needed to regain the feeling
in my legs and get out of bed to get outside, all I could do was sit and cling
to the faint smell of my perfume in my room being overtaken by the nauseating odor
of burning redwood. I sat and stared out of my window in disbelief at the
flames that had engulfed the wooden deck outside of my house. I kept pinching
myself; I knew I had to be dreaming this. I quickly snapped back into reality
whenever I felt the scorching heat on my face. Shit, this was no dream. MY HOUSE WAS ON FIRE!
I
had at least a million thoughts racing through my brain all at once. Each one
fighting its way to be processed: all of them failing. My thoughts were quick
and fleeting and the only two words that I actually understood in that moment
were “GET OUT.”
For
as many times as I had attempted to envision this scene actually happening in
my life, none of them came remotely close to what was going on in that moment. I
took off sprinting into one of my roommates’ rooms. “Mackenzie, OUR DECK IS ON
FIRE,” I shouted at her once I finally had her awake. I told her to hurry and
go wake up our other roommate, Danielle, while I called 911. I dialed and put
the phone up to my ear as I frantically grabbed random objects: jewelry, purse,
phone, laptop, and pictures. I grabbed objects until I could hold on to them no
longer. The entire conversation with the operator for 911 was a blur, I could
not repeat it if I tried. I know that I was annoyed with her calmness and how
at ease she was while something this horrific was taking place in my life.
Shit.
The fire had started to make its way to my room, and it was taking no
prisoners. I grabbed my pile of things that I had put together and ran into the
hallway looking for Mackenzie. I began to choke and cough from the smoke. She
was already out of the house. I darted into Danielle’s room and screamed when I
saw that her ceiling had caved in on the bed. I remember thinking to myself
that she must have already escaped, too. I ran and opened the cage for my pet
pig to get out. Both of us took off out of the house together. As I looked
back, the last image I saw was my hallway being immersed in the vicious flames
of hell. I knew that the home I had grown to love and made so many memories in
would soon be nothing but memories of what once was. It would be nothing more
than a pile of ashes.
Once
I got outside, I was blinded by the blur of flashing red and blue lights
everywhere. I kept trying to count the number of fire trucks, but I lost count
at five every time. My eyes burned from the smoke. I coughed so hard that I
vomited. I was dressed in hesitation as I kept trying to convince myself that
everything would be okay.
I
saw Mackenzie across the street and ran up to her when I noticed that she was
weeping. Before I could even try to ask her what was wrong, I scanned the scene
and realized that I could not see Danielle. Where was she? Mackenzie woke her
up, she must have. That was all she had to do. I mean, how hard could that be?
Apparently harder than I had anticipated. That is, if the foreboding feeling I
had in my stomach was hinting towards the truth of what happened.
I
knew. I knew that I knew, and I still could not bring myself to actually say it
out loud, nor could Mackenzie. I just sat there replaying the image of
Danielle’s ceiling being caved in on her bed in my mind. I did not even try to
go in and see if she was in there. I just assumed, and now my best friend was
dead. Mackenzie held an embrace filled with sobs for what seemed like an
eternity. The only way we could communicate was through the understanding nods
underneath our tears.
A
giant man made his way toward me. He introduced himself as the Lubbock Fire
Marshal and told me he had some questions for me. I told him my side of what
happened, but the entire time all I could focus on was how Danielle was gone. I
noticed his gray head of hair. I figured could not be over forty-five. He must
have seen a lot of bad things throughout his career; many homes lost, as well
as lives.
As
soon as he walked off, I noticed that a news crew had arrived and was setting
up their camera. This had to be a fucking joke. I almost prayed that they would
come up to me and ask me their petty little questions. I was completely
dumbfounded that they were actually going to try and make a “story” out of
this. They did not care that I had just lost my best friend of ten years, nor
did they care that we had lost our home and all of our belongings inside of it.
Danielle deserved better than some pathetic mention on the six-o-clock news.
Hell, we all deserved better. I had to walk away. It was all too much.
As
I was walking away, I continued to cough. I could not stop. I was unable to
breathe and began gagging when a paramedic rushed up to help me. He told me to
lie down on the gurney while he ran and got me water. I just sat there,
sweating profusely, wailing, shaking my head wanting this all to be over.
A
bead of sweat dripped down in my eye, and my clothes were soaked. I suddenly
raised my head and surveyed my room, simply to notice everything was perfectly
fine. I quickly sat up and walked over to my space heater. I turned it off,
changed clothes, and went back to sleep.
My favorite part about the story was the beginning when the main character is waking from the grogginess of a dream. I think every college student can relate to being groggy and being unable to identify the loud, unrelenting beeping of the alarm clock those first moments of being awake. After studying all night for an exam and having to be up super early, it’s easy to be unable to identify the most familiar things, much less try to comprehend the fact that your house is on fire. I also liked that while these things were going on, you were able to look inside the mind of the main character. As the reader can imagine, the main character is going to be panicking. Instead of plainly writing that she was panicking, however, you say that she “had at least a million thoughts racing through [her] brain all at once. Each one fighting its way to be processed: all of them failing”. In stressful events such as these, the flight or fight response is initiated and it is likely that she won’t be able to process thoughts or see a plan through to completion. You then go on to say that “[Her] thoughts were quick and fleeting and the only two words that [she] actually understood in that moment were “GET OUT.” I thought that this was a nice choice as a writer to tell the reader what the main character was thinking, or perhaps not thinking, in this moment of desperation. I also liked the way the way the main character justifies things in her mind while she panicking and trying to escape the burning building. When she discovers that the roof above Danielle’s bed has caved in, she is of course terrified. However, she clings to the possibility of Danielle being safe outside with Mackenzie and feels it is okay for her to leave the house. Had the house not been on fire and she had come into Danielle’s room with her roof caved in, I feel the main character would have done everything she could to physically dig her friend out, whether she was alive or not, because I do not believe her to be a coward. However, the stress of the situation prompted her to do otherwise, and she has to believe that the worst hasn’t happened.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the main character rushed around grabbing personal items while her house was on fire made me dislike her slightly. Instead of going to wake up Danielle on her own, she tells her roommate Mackenzie to do it, and rushes to get personal items from her room. While I’m not sure that having the main character go to Danielle’s room would have saved Danielle’s life (possibly saving her in the nick of time before her ceiling caved in), Danielle seems more concerned with her possessions than the wellbeing of her remaining roommate. I feel that the main character should have expressed some feelings of fault for this reason, even though she may have not been able to save her friend. Maybe looking at all of the items she had salvaged from the house and thinking to herself “is all of this junk really worth more than human life?” and afterwards have her throw the items back into the fire engulfing her house, even knowing that doing so wouldn’t bring her friend back.
Your story reminded me of “Are You Mister Lonelee?” in that I was totally convinced that these things that the main character was experiencing were real. Up until the very last two sentences of this story, I was convinced that her house was on fire and that the grief she felt from losing her friend was genuine. You do not find out that these things are false until the main character confesses that they are. Such is the nature of first person narration (seen both in “Are You Mister Lonelee” and this one): you must believe that the main character is telling you the truth because who else is going to convince you otherwise?
Great Job, Maddie!
This was a really great story. The tie between the fire and the dream was genius. It was very relatable for readers. Every person at some point in time in their life picture their homes burning to the ground, and everyone always asks him/her self what they would do in light of that situation. Like what would I take? Or even what would I do? What made this story even better was the twist that was put in with the friend that was absolute worst-case scenario. That is most peoples fear is to lose someone that they love; someone that is really close to them. Its hard to think about, and let alone deal with, and that is what draws readers in the most. We wanted to know if she really died or not. Another great twist was the fact that in the end it actually was a dream. My mind was blown, because I was just thinking in my head that this couldn’t get any worse and there was nothing that could have turned out good for this girl, but then it did and I think that’s what makes it a great story. Most readers have a blood thirst for something that isn’t happening to them. They want something bad to happen so they can feel that pain without actually having to go through it but then they live for the hope at the end. That’s what separates good stories from great ones. The only really thing I could think about to improve, and this was a really hard decision for me, would be the in the beginning when we were told that it wasn’t really a dream, I would have liked that to be a little bit more believable and more dramatic. Don’t get me wrong it was good but I would have just liked it to be a little bit more. Other then that I thought this was a really great story. To me this story reminded me of Worst Case Scenario from Kevin Wilson’s “Tunneling to the Center of the Earth.” It really did make the readers feel like it was the absolute worst case scenario that could have happened to them and then it turned out to be a dream which gave readers hope just like the end of the story from Wilson’s book. In my opinion I liked this story better than Wilson’s and I believe that it would have fit right in that book along with all the other stories Wilson wrote. Good job on this story.
ReplyDelete