A Short StoryThree Steps To Heaven?

- Gary’s mum only went to the pub on New Years and got dressed up.

Fire trucks kept coming and neighbors gathered around to lend a hand. Many people brought blankets, offered hot chocolate, and a place to keep warm. They were all so kind, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from the house. Mom talks to us on the phone while she’s on her way home from work in Des Moines. My sister and I hug each other in disbelief and cry. We watch the firefighters throw everything out of my bedroom window, which is in the basement.

Tears poured down my face like I was in a rain forest, hugged my mom tightly as if she was a cuddly stuffed animal and I prayed, prayed like I’ve never prayed before. Not really knowing what was going on or what was going to happen. My sister arrived home, followed by my dad shortly after. While we waited to hear back from the hospital, we sat on the couch in the living room bawling our eyes out probably. Don’t worry, I will tell you about what is going on.

I woke up looking around not knowing what was going on. I looked around realizing that I was in an unknown bed. Panicking at first I tried to find my bearings, but I calmed down quickly as I watched my mother walk into the room.

I grabbed a box of items and went to the door, unlike Birmingham I don't have a front garden anymore or a welcoming front view but home is home.

Moving from the downstairs to the home’s upstairs, you enter a set of staircases found outside the home’s

“Montag [sits] down. His wife [says], ‘I don't know why I should be so hungry.’ ‘You-’ ‘I’m hungry.’ ‘Last night,’ he [begins]. ‘Didnt sleep well.

What was once a beautiful but small lawn with grass is now a patch of dead grass with dirt exposing itself under the grass. What was once the creaky barn doors are completely destroyed, with broken glass on the ground on the outside, leading to the inside. What was once the living room where I had spent so much time watching television and playing games with my siblings, now has its carpet completely torn up, walls indented, and closet in complete shambles with light gleaming sharply through the holes of the closet from holes that were made by vandals who never knew the true value of the humble abode that I used to reside in. My old home, since being lived in by me and my family has since been abandoned by the family that we had entrusted the house to previously. Now the house just stays there, an eerie empty shell of what it used to be. A place where I was safe and happy, now a dark and scary place that no one deserves to live in, a place that humans have indeed used well, so well that there is nothing left of what it used to be. That image of the house was the last I saw it, back in 2010, It is possible now that the house had since been destroyed, with the memories that have been carved into the walls, fireplace, windows, closets, and bedrooms, are now nothing more but a blur of destroyed objects that will one day be removed, as people pass by the home that once was will never be able to see its clarity, but instead will only be able to see the blur of colors protruding from the exterior of the house, or perhaps the brown of the barn like doors, or the patches of green still rising from the dead grass that surrounds it, until eventually, it simply disappears completely invisible to the city that used it ever so

There were six fire trucks in my driveway from all different townships. We ended up having to park down the street in my neighbors yard. My dogs were at Kevin’s house for the time being. I noticed my parents were already outside, so I went up to them. The flames were mostly gone by the time I had showed up and they were trying to get things cooled down and cleaned up from all the sludge that had become of it. My grandparents got out to see how everything was going, and then hours later, when the firefighters had declared it safe enough, my family and I went into the house we had all spent ten years of our life in. The house I walked into was one I did not recognize. Everything was out of place and soaking wet from all the water they had to use to put out the fire. Even the items that weren’t burnt were still damaged from either the smoke or all the water. Luckily, my door had been closed to my room, which had saved some things. Unluckily, most of my personal possessions were ruined. My clothes, my journals I had kept up with, and most of the things I held dear to me were gone in a

Upon opening the back door, Vasquez observed that there was just enough space to squeeze past the refrigerator blocking the exit. The air smelled of burned rubber and melted wires; a damp ash covered the ground, sticking to their boots. In the kitchen, Vasquez and Fogg discerned only smoke and heat damage—a sign that the fire had not originated there—and so they pushed deeper into the nine-hundred-and-seventy-five-square-foot building. A central corridor led past a utility room and the master bedroom, then past a small living room, on the left, and the children’s bedroom, on the right, ending at the front door, which opened onto the porch. Vasquez tried to take in everything, a process that he compared to entering one’s mother-in-law’s house for the first time: “I have the same curiosity.”

“Small town big heart,” they say locked away behind their cold immaculate castle gates that rest on the remains of the previous farmland and plains. The collective heart beats but only at a convenient time suiting parties involved. “A place where everyone matters,” they utter as their motto in indistinguishable monotone voices. The people are too wrapped up in their everyday lives to ever be concerned about their neighbor, they look through life with gilded glasses. It’s as if a fog had descended slowly creeping into their view distorting what they once held most dear.

All I could concentrate on was my life and my friends inside of the club. When everything was finally over, the police came and started interrogations. Of course, they questioned me, asked me what I remembered and I could not answer them because all I remembered was these two guys arguing and maybe 30 seconds after I stepped to the scene the gun was out. One would say, “Well maybe you were too drunk to remember.” I hadn’t had a single drink that night.

This past Winter Miss Maudie Atkinson house caught on fire. Many of her neighbors got up in the middle of the night to help Miss Maudie get her furniture out of the house. The fire department got there in time stop the fire from spreading throughout the neighborhood. Unfortunately Miss Maudie’s house burned to the ground.

All I remember was a big bang that sounded like an explosion and i was in a room filled with smoke. It was hard to breathe, i was looking for the stairs. I found a door with the stairs, it was jammed, so I had to break the door. Fast enough, I saw a ton of debris blocking the stairs, burning in a big fire. I went to the door and fully broke it, and started shoveling the debris with the door.

“Tired darling?” She asked. “Yes. I’m tired.” Straight after I say this I stand to get another glass of whisky. I just couldn’t look at her face. “I’ll get it!” She exclaimed. I firmly replied with a “Sit down.” As I poured a large amount of whisky into my glass. She probably noticed. She was like that, observant, she noticed all the small details. “Darling, shall I get your slippers?” She asked from a distance. “No” I replied, I didn’t even want her near my things. I lifted the drink to my lips and let a mouthful of the liquid flow down my throat. She needed to stop, she needed to leave me alone. She kept talking, "I think it's a shame," she paused and said, "that when a policeman gets to be as senior as you, they keep him walking about on his feet all day long." I didn’t answer, she couldn’t care that much. I took another sip. Why did I have to find out, it would’ve been better if I didn’t. "If you're too tired to eat out," she went on, "it's still not too late. There's plenty of meat