Memories:
The automatic call came through from the fire alarm at the factory. The dispatcher looked at the address without feeling and emotion and chose the closest station to respond. The factory in question had been closed for a year and a half and falling apart for two before that. The owners had put at least three hundred people out of work when they had decided to move their business overseas for cheaper labor cost. Her brother-in-law had been laid off. He had not taken the news well and it hadn’t been long until he had left her sister and her two children to disappear to who knew where. Secretly the dispatcher was glad that the factory was finally coming to a fitting end. At least it wouldn’t be there anymore to torment her sister with all the ‘what might have beens’.
The automatic call came through from the fire alarm at the factory. The dispatcher looked at the address without feeling and emotion and chose the closest station to respond. The factory in question had been closed for a year and a half and falling apart for two before that. The owners had put at least three hundred people out of work when they had decided to move their business overseas for cheaper labor cost. Her brother-in-law had been laid off. He had not taken the news well and it hadn’t been long until he had left her sister and her two children to disappear to who knew where. Secretly the dispatcher was glad that the factory was finally coming to a fitting end. At least it wouldn’t be there anymore to torment her sister with all the ‘what might have beens’.
Her brain seemed vacant and empty as the smoke began to fill her lungs. Everything and nothing told her she had to move, to get out of here. ‘But why?’ It was the urge; the need and desire to escape that were overwhelmingly powerful. Trying to move, though, was another story. Nothing seemed to be working. If the eyelids seemed impossible to open, the arms and legs were more than impossible for her to lift. Steel beams would have been easier for her to move. Nothing she did could encourage them to work with her fuzzy brain. Ignoring the increasing amount of sweat trickling down her face and dropping to the concrete floor as she worked to move anything, she searched her mind for any answers. She looked for any reason that she could think of that would have caused this paralysis, pain, or her yearning to flee. For that matter, an identity to the incessant beeping that threatened to make her head explode at any minute. But it was like looking into empty rooms of a house you never knew. As she tried to move her arms again she could feel her heart start to beat a little faster and then faster as the need to flee fed the realization of the impossibility of the action. She couldn’t let panic set in.
Another wave of fear hit her. She didn’t even know who she was. The question, ‘Who am I?’ rang through her brain only briefly as she came to the conclusion that this might be, should be, and would be better answered later. Funny thing was that she couldn’t remember much that had gone on in the last week, month, and maybe even the year through the haze of pain she felt numbing her brain. Panic took hold of her. ‘Was it getting hotter?’ not a great time for amnesia she chastised herself. The thumping of her heart filled her chest, overflowing into her ears, competing with the annoying beeping, and making it nearly impossible to think. The rhythm of her beating heart began to resound louder in her ears, louder and louder until, with panic, it drowned out the incessant beeping she had first heard. Then she heard something or someone move near her. As she once again tried with every amount of strength she had left to move, she discovered that it was just as fruitless as the first time she had tried it. With every ounce of strengthen she tried to scream and only mustered a voice barely audible to her ears. The voice that did emerged from her lips was a flat, feeling-less voice she barely recognized, ‘At least I can recognize the sound of my own voice.’ The thought drifted quickly through her mind as the allure of unconsciousness toyed with her brain through the overwhelming pain she felt and that did very little to calm her nerves. A small hopeful thought drifted through her mind as she waited for the stranger to say something. She wanted them to know, ‘I’m alive.’
“She’s awake.” a voice, not one she knew, but one that filled her with anger and fear.
“Let the fire finish her off. I won’t do it. I owe a friend at least that much. I’ve gotten all the useful information I could from her,” somewhere in her mind she knew this speaker, but it was the calming thought she thought it might be, “She’s just like him. Did you find what we needed in the car?” She never heard the answer from the other voice. Although her mind tried to tell her just who was standing near her, logic kept arguing that it couldn’t be him. She felt him focus on her again and her head began to feel as if it would explode. All hope seemed to leave as the blackness finally claimed her. It was a blissful release from her current world of pain and agony, floating in a black nothingness, weightless, wantless. Thoughts were not a part of this world she had entered, and neither was anything else.
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