“CLAIM”
By Jen Pretty, 1st Place, Fiction
Flickering flames licked up from the window, trying to touch the night sky. They gripped the curtains, consuming them, before falling away. My heart raced in my chest, pounding against my rib cage like a startled canary trying to flee. The heat flashed in waves, reaching and recoiling. The graceful way it fanned, like the ebb and flow of waves lapping at the shore, had me mesmerized. I stood, stone-cold, the exact opposite of the spectacle before me. My feet had taken root, holding me to the earth so I could do nothing but watch as the flames found their way higher, up to the second floor. My stomach clenched, but I couldn’t say if it was in fear or freedom.
The fire had already consumed the places where we used to gather. The old oak table, scarred with memories, had been brought to ash. Flames flowed through the living room, where we spent evenings watching TV. It had swallowed the front porch whole, leaving the old bench swing nothing more than blackened toothpicks.
Flames tickled the roof. Slipping out through any gap they could find. Bitter tongues chasing every lick of the life I would leave behind.
Our bedroom roared with a red light that lit up the night sky. The final resting place of a marriage that fate wouldn’t let live. My fingers itched to grab my phone, but I knew it was too late. I couldn’t stop what had begun, not yet. A million memories filtered through my mind. All the good. All the bad. Everything I held dear was in the flames. Everything I hated, too. I had laid my entire life out before me like a winding road. Our plans together. Our plan to become something more. It was all a past I didn’t need now. A part of me that was gone.
A single crow called out from the trees, making me turn away from what I had wrought. The bird’s sleek black feathers glittered red in the firelight. A demonic witness to my ultimate destruction.
The fond memories were all gone now. Small hands and warm hugs. The joy and laughter. Destroyed by a bottle that held him captive. Too many good years wasted; too many things tarnished.
Our home had already burned down, it just hadn’t felt the bite of the flames yet. But now it did. Now it all felt the sharp slap of a palm. It felt the hard clutch of fingers biting into flesh.
A home can’t withstand that kind of damage. Just like a house can’t fight against the burning fire that tears the flesh from its bones.
The sky echoed with a resounding crash of thunder a moment before the rain came, refreshing and life-giving. Washing anew. It soaked through my shirt and tried to stop the flames that danced in my eyes, but the toxic heat wouldn’t release its hold now. It was too late for a reprieve. The flames screamed with renewed vigour. As if they would never be tamed now that they had made their claim.
The crow and I stood sentinel as the fire finally reached over the top and pulled the roof down into the middle. Sparks shot upward like dancing lightning bugs disappearing into the sky. I wanted to step forward and touch the fire that brought the final piece of my past to rest. But the heat forced me to finally step back. A push to get me moving in a new direction.
My feet stumbled over the flower bed, crushing a pansy beneath my boot. I bent and plucked the flower from the ground, carrying it with me as I strode away from the wreckage. A piece of hope to carry me through.
My back warmed and my face cooled until I slid behind the wheel of the rusted minivan that had once carried kids to soccer and piano lessons but hadn’t seen a child in years. They had moved on and now it was my turn.
I put the van in drive, following the winding driveway. The crow flew down behind me, landing on the grass and pulling a worm free. My eyes tracked him in the rear-view for a moment before refocusing on the way forward. I couldn’t find any life in that place. So, with no destination in mind besides away, I tucked the pansy into the sun visor. The windshield wipers cleared away the future, and I didn’t allow myself another single moment of sorrow. Those days ended with the shattering of a bottle and the flicking of a single match.
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