A fictionalized historical short story about the horrors of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire of 1911. Won an honorable mention in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards (2016) This story was also edited and published in Issue Ten of the Blue Marble Review. Worked with editor, Molly Hill, throughout this process for my first paid publication. (2018)
Blindly, I look around for my little sister, trying to catch a glimpse of her red braids somewhere in the crowd. I’m still calling out her name frantically when a small hand grips ahold of my dress. Quickly, I turn around to see my Ann staring back at me. Her cheeks are red, tears flowing freely down the sides of her face. The bottoms of her dress are singed, like she barely made it out before the flames took ahold of what they thought they were entitled to. Her breaths escape her lips raggedly as her smaller hand tangles with mine. I give it a short squeeze and we push towards the elevator shaft. Already, girls are piling in, trying to cram as many bodies as they can into one car.
“No more!” A girl barks at the rest of us, closing the gate quickly behind her. The last thing I see of her is the soot draped beneath her cheekbones as the shaft descends downwards.
“We didn’t get on that one.” Ann murmurs, her bottom lip quivering.
“Next one, Annie, next one,” I whisper back, tugging on her hand. I can tell she’s terrified, her tears dropping onto the floor next to her feet. “Remember our plans? We are going to become rich and wear fancy evening gowns-“
“Can I get a fancy hat?” she asks me, suddenly.
“The fanciest,” I assure her.
“A purple hat?” she asks again, her voice trembling.
“The brightest, biggest purple hat we can find.” I nod to her. The next car never arrives. People start to become frantic, pushing forward and trying to see what the holdup is. The people up in front are whispering to the back that the elevator has crashed and there will be no more. Screams flood my ears as people jump down the shaft to escape the fire that is drifting even closer to our bodies that are shivering even though we aren’t at all cold.
“Come on.” Ann tugs on my hand and urges me closer to the shaft.
“We aren’t jumping, Annie,” I tell her, urgency etched in my voice.
“Everyone else is doing it.”
“We’ll die on impact,” I try to convince her, but she is having none of it. Instead, she pushes to the front of the group. I get caught in the back, angry girls in scorched dresses covering up her trail. I try to yank a girl backwards to get back to my sister and she kicks me straight in the knees. Hobbling for a few seconds, I at last get to the front of the group. Ann is standing at the very edge of the shaft. I try to pull her back, but I only get the back of her necklace that we made together when we were children. Beads fly down with her as I clench my eyes closed, as if that will block out her scream. For a second, I can’t breathe. My sister is gone and I don’t wait to hear the crash landing. I took this job to keep my family alive and I failed. Without her, it just seems all over. With my Achilles’ heel aching, I limp to the back of the crowd.
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