The Grey Flames

Short

story

by Irish Reem T. Linaota

Third Place, Literary Contest 2023 Short Story Category

One winter night in the forest so deep as a mind, a grey smoke was reaching the sky. It was the old woman, again, burning wooden sticks to keep herself warm. Her ashen hair and weary eyes were her distinct features, as she continued to stare at the burning wood.

“Still cold Not enough,” she thought, and started to walk towards her cabin, and when she came back, she was holding a bag that seemed to be heavy enough to make her fall, yet, she held onto it until she was near a fire. The old woman opened the bag and revealed a set of books and papers whose titles were stained with ink to prevent someone from reading them

“Maybe, just maybe, if I use these, it will be warm enough, right?” She mumbled to herself. She started to throw the contents of the bag into the flames and there was a crackling heard. The woman twitched and in her indifferent look started to melt. “Why? Why is it not enough? Still cold, I need more warmth.” Her words became indecipherable, and her sight blurred as she walked towards the burning books. She was holding out her hands, like someone waiting for a warm embrace, but she was too desperate, and the flames covered her hands like wildfire spreading in a forest. She took her hands back and extinguished the fire, revealing her second-degree burns.

She ran towards the cabin to treat her wounds, cursing herself. After that, she came back again to extinguish the fire, but why then was it so cold? She was kneeling and crying, wrinkling her already wrinkled face. How stupid of her to think the fire could do anything, right? She already tried but it was still there, the never-ending cold and the lifeless sight around her The woman was losing hope as the unknown number of days went by She wanted to do “it”, but something was telling her not to. Not when she had not yet remembered what she was looking for in this place.

She searched her head for answers but was met with a dead end. It may not be a dead end, just a vague clue, “south ” But why would she risk it when the end is not clear? Yet she stood again and ran to it. She would not die unless she chose to and right now, she is choosing to make a journey to get something back.

Arriving at her destination, she almost puked at the sight. It was a garden whose soil is made of ashes she seemed familiar to, and a group of clay “men” whose bodies were forcefully disfigured. She does not want to see it again, not when she had grown out of it, or did she?

The woman knew already that she cannot escape, no matter how much time will pass. They will always be there. She treaded carefully inside, her head throbbing with the sound of laughter that polluted the air. “Hah, so dead,” was all she could speak of as she entered the house that the garden surrounded. The grey atmosphere, the cobwebs, and the dust filling the corner remind her of the place she once called “home.”

She explored the house for some time and got drawn by the sound of music she was also familiar with. She took a peek and saw a man stretching some clay to form a girl, but when he was not satisfied, she started to stretch and use more force to make her look perfect. Yet he failed and threw the lifeless grey body outside along with others.

“Father,” she thought. She remembered, it was the man who tried to train her so that she would be perfect, but like the clay girl, she broke down trying to find another one like her, broken and needed to be completed. She had always hated this place, but also wanted to go back to find that “warmth of home” she had gotten used to

After regaining her memories, she left unsatisfied knowing that there are still some more puzzles that “she” wanted to solve. She walked and walked without a destination until the sun broke through the clouds. “A sun that was not warm, just hot and scorching.” It was the same heat that turned her silent tears and unspoken words into dust. Another clue, was it?

The desert was bombarded by storms, yet its heat never ceased. The desert that she always visited to reminisce with her empty memories. She did not like nor hate this place, but an unknown entity always draws her to it. She looked at the sun, hurting her eyes when she desperately tried to see its color. Yellow, her favorite color when she was young, so innocent and warm, to be only tainted by the darkness of her life.

It was here in the desert she found the final clues, a picture, and a mirror. A familiar sight was captured in the photo, it was her and her mother in a sunflower field picnic. She smiled, but was suddenly shocked when the picture crumbled into sand. Angry, she started to slam the ground and screamed before a voice was heard. “You really haven’t learned yet? Why do you keep coming back to me? Move on now, won’t you? Stop destroying yourself further,” it said.

But she can’t. She does not want to, and the woman will not care to hurt herself just to experience it again. The warmth of love she had always been craving and the past full of happiness that kept her stuck in time. “You’re dying, you know? Yet you waste your seconds reliving the same memories in your head. Maybe that’s why you’re weak,” the voice said again but the old woman was not listening, busy trying to draw the photo in the sand, that continued to be blown by the wind. All of her journey for nothing. Her search for warmth made her love herself, damning her body and mind to miserable greyness engulfing what’s left of her.