Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.
The Prompts:
PENGUIN FLIGHT SCHOOL
MARTIAN KARAOKE*
LIPSTICK CAMERA
BRING THE FILE
BURNED OUT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fire!!!
Sandy was on a break and absorbed in her book so she wasn’t paying attention to the noises around her. She worked in the front office mostly by herself and so she brought a book to work for break times and lunch.
The manager, Mr. Girard, stuck his head in the door and said, “Sandy there is a fire on the second floor and it is spreading fast. Get out of here, but please bring the file for payroll if you have it handy.”
Mr. Girard hurried on to the different offices to alert everyone he could. Luckily he knew the personnel upstairs in the 2nd floor offices were already down stairs as they were the first to notice the smoke coming out of one of the empty offices.
Mr. Girard went looking for the fire alarm to sound the alarm to give everyone a heads-up especially the rest of the personnel that were in the kitchen and dining room of the club as it was a large building and he couldn’t cover it all himself.
In the meantime a customer tracked down the alarm and set it off after telling the kitchen personnel to leave as quickly as possible out the back. The front was already filled with smoke and the fire was rapidly moving down the stairs to the front door.
Sandy escaped out the front door with a handful of files that she had handy on her desk including the payroll file. She stood out front with the others who were already out, but she was nervously thinking about those in the back of the building.
The customer who rang the fire alarm gathered the workers and took them through the back dining room to the doors. They were locked. Several people grabbed chairs and threw them through the windows and doors and everyone dashed out and ran along the small back path trying to get around to the front to the big parking lot. Windows were blowing out up above them and sprinkling them with glass. Most of them were coughing and choking on all the smoke.
The manager started to count heads as the firemen rushed in to try and control the fire. Luckily everyone got out and Sandy saved a lot of the files.
The firemen couldn’t save the top floor and it was burned out, but the downstairs which contained the dining rooms, a few offices and the kitchen was just smoke and water damage and the club reopened once they took care of the remodeling. It was determined that the fire was set by a disgruntled employee. Luckily no one was hurt.
This could’ve turned horrific. Disgruntled employees… ergh. They are the worst (I’ve known a few in my career that wouldn’t surprise me if they went off like that.)
LikeLike
This is partially non-fiction. Wrote a different view about it before. This was on a Marine Corp Air Station and in the officer’s club. I was just upstairs before it started. That really freaked me out. Then afterwards I had to drag 2 babies down to the base (walking) to answer a million questions by the Naval Intelligence. Luckily no one was hurt other than the smoke inhalation I and several others suffered.
LikeLike
Very nice response to the prompts!
LikeLike
Thank you Kate! Thanks for the follow and I am now following you!
LikeLike
Thank you! 🙂
LikeLike
Phew. I can imagine her sitting there reading, totally unaware, until it was too late! Glad she got out – and saved the all-important payroll file!
LikeLike
That part about saving the payroll file really happened. She grabbed it on her own. We were all happy. And I can sometimes get that deep into a book that something like that could happen, but the smoke was thick and hard to ignore completely. Made for a good story though.
LikeLike
Pingback: Inspiration Monday: Infant Memoirs - bekindrewrite