A Short Short Story
Mister Johanson looks out the window onto 10th Avenue. Fathers and mothers walk their sons and daughters to their first days of school around the corner. The kids’ oversized ties and undersized blazers match what their parents would soon don before heading downtown for work. Roller backpacks click and clack with an off beat rhythm on the sidewalk with every crack in the pavement.
The Baldor delivery truck is double parked at its usual spot in front of the restaurant below. Cars and bikes swerve around the truck as fruits and vegetables and bread are unloaded from its cargo. The apartment complex across the street reflects the morning sun into his apartment, casting his silhouette against the barren wall next to his desk.
Out of sight from his window, Mister Johanson hears the rumble of construction workers beginning their day. Work on the church steadily progressed since a candle fire brought the interior to ruin five years ago.
The fire happened on a similar September morning of blue skies. Fathers and mothers walked their children to school and the food truck outside unloaded its wares. Like clockwork, some things never change with the minutes and hours and days that go by. Mister Johanson had settled into his chair and began to write as he always spent his mornings. Parents returned from school to dress for the day and the truck, barren of its goods, drove off.
Mister Johanson remembered the smell before anything else that morning. At first he thought he left the stove on for his coffee, but always the creature of habit, he was sure it was turned off the second the kettle screamed its whistle.
No, the smell was acrid, like some old and forgotten industrial chemicals were in the air. He peered outside his window and saw a glow on the building across the street. Flames reflected and refracted in the windows. Sirens were heard in the distance. He threw on his work coat yet still in his pajamas he ran outside and looked north to the church, a billow of smoke was escaping from every orifice in its facade. Sirens continued in the distance and Mister Johanson hoped they would arrive soon.
Others stopped and stared at the black clouds forming in the blue sky above the church, in awe of what damage could happen to such a beautiful building. Mister Johanson was struck by his own helplessness as he and other onlookers waited for the firetrucks to arrive. Minutes passed and the fire began to consume the stained glass windows, melting in the heat. Soot tarnished the marble exteriors around where the windows had been.
To the relief of the onlookers, a siren grew close coming down 9th Avenue. Mister Johanson looked hopefully for its turn onto the street, but it raced by going south. “Where are they going?” he cried in confusion, “Don’t they know the fire is here?”
Someone should do something, he thought.
He ran to the telephone booth on the corner and dialed 911. It rang and rang. The other line was busy. He turned his head to the sky in hope of an answer and saw a tower of smoke. Not from the church, but further south. It climbed high into the sky and drifted away thousands of feet above New York City.