Becoming Burning

 

Lily vows, This year the winter will not break me.

 

She buys full spectrum light bulbs, twisting them into the fixtures. She buys chunky sweaters and woolen mittens. She stocks oversized cans of chili and packages of hot chocolate with little freeze dried marshmallows. She prays for heaven’s floor to break and the summer sun to fall sooner rather than later.

 

Her mother phones saying words like seasonal affect disorder and psychiatrist.    Lily agrees, Yes mom, I’ve got wounds that won’t heal.

 

But Lily is losing this war and the losing looks like this:

 

Monday morning, faded rays through the window don’t wake Lily. She sleeps through the snooze, through the staff meeting, through lunch hour, through customers thinking they’re always right. Eventually, she wakes shivering. 

 

Lily lounges in her bed sheets, imagining herself a sun. Who wouldn’t want to be a luminary, controlling the oceans, the tides, time?

 

She wears three sweaters to the mailbox, her feet melting the snow. The barren trees black with birds heckling her. She puts a letter of resignation in the mailbox, lifts the little flag, and then goes back to bed. Something like sadness seeps into her bones and she sobs.

 

Lily’s unlatching her life, severing ties. Cable cancelled, library fines paid, subscriptions stopped, last letters mailed, Lily is finishing – everything.

 

Quiet hands strike a match, lighting her last cigarette. Inhaling. Exhaling. She relaxes, contemplating the shrinking distance between the glowing ember and the comforter. 

 

The bed ignites. And just before the fringe of her bathrobe blossoms orange, Lily is happy, she is warm.

 

Lily lays in the blaze becoming a genuine burning bush, only it’s her.  

 

Trying to interpret Lily’s charred home to the firemen the landlord uses dramatic gestures and widening eyes. The neighbors adored her for her tiny shoes neatly aligned at the edge of her welcome matt. It must have been an accident – not the tidy line of shoes, the fire.

Reviews

[Sammy]

You have an evocative use of language, and as someone who is feels seasonal affective disorder myself, I can relate to this. I liked the detail of the shoes at the end: in a short piece like this something like that can really bring it to life. Props for the Biblical reference with the burning bush, as well.

[LJW]

I absolutely love this. What flash fiction was meant to be.

[W.k.kortas]

I found it interesting that Emily brought up "The Twilight Zone"; what differentiated good Serling from so-so Serling was the plausibility, the nagging feeling that the events submitted for our approval were not really outside the realm of the possible. This story, and the works of yours I've read, share this attribute. It's real life, but life tweaked and pushed a bit off-kilter, be it charmingly Capra-esque or disturbingly towards Serling's realm. The pacing is excellent, the use of language virtuoso, and the feel for detail pitch-perfect.

[Touché Armada]

I cant quite understand why winter is such a ball breaker to people, perhaps its because here winter is mild compared with other places? No thats not it, because Europe is bloody freezing in January yet all the blinds are thrown open and the streets and parks are full of children and lovers and the elderly for a moments play and fresh air. Summer has me hightailing it to drawn blinds trying to fend off sunburn and a dusty windpipe, definitely catch less outdoors time in daylight in summer than in winter. How sad to burn in the snuggest time of all, she needed a fluffy rug and a proper fire place perhaps a hot chocolate, certainly something to do outside despite the winter chill, gloves jacket and a cashmere scarf.
I really enjoyed this read, no matter the story its well done (pardon the pun)

[Emily B]

Most people have problems with winter. My season is summer for some reason. Not the cold or the gray skies like Lily. You have a gift, you know. You draw these pictures of people. Unique stories so artfully drawn. And I may have said it before but you remind me most of those Latin American stories I read in college. Dark and a little ethereal, making "The Twilight Zone" look like a cheap impersonation.

[Gary H]

Thought this was very entertaining and up until the final paragraphs I was not really sure of the direction this was going to take. I'm not really too sure about the closing line though. Personally I would leave this for the reader to form their own point of view. Alternatively perhaps you could indicate that the landlord speaking this?