Short Stories

Short Story #12

I leisurely strolled down the street, wondering how I should blow ten dollars' worth of allowance. I could get a few donuts and have enough money for some gum, or I could run over to the mall and buy a cheeseburger, then save the rest for later...

I was mulling over all my options when I saw a man hurrying down the street; well, at least he seemed to be hurrying. He seemed very peculiar, and he was dressed like a detective; he wore a lopsided bowler hat and a coffee-stained trench coat, his head was lowered as if it was made of concrete, and he slowly dragged a large canvas bag on the ground behind him, which seemed incredibly heavy.

I stopped and stared in the window, observing his reflection in the glass of the shop. He hurried over to a random passerby and said something to him. He slowly shook his head and looked curiously at the man.

The man rushed off and found his next target, which unfortunately was me. He ran up to me, head still bowed. "Hello, young sir." Although he looked fairly young, his voice was ancient and wheezy. "Would you mind holding this bag for me?"
Warnings from my parents and lessons at school passed through my head. Don't accept things from people you don't know. Don't let strangers lead you to a place where you'd be alone.
But holding a bag for someone for a moment didn't seem like much. If anything, I'd actually be helping him, since it seemed really heavy. "Okay," I said tentatively and accepted the bag.

I was not ready for the sheer weight of it. The moment his hand released it, my arm was pulled straight to the ground by the bag. I struggled to lift it, but I couldn't. Wondering what could possibly be so heavy, I looked inside the bag.

I took one look at the contents and nearly fainted from what I saw. It was perfectly filled to the brim with concrete. I tried to tug it, but it didn't budge. Several people passing by looked at me strangely. I eventually steeled myself and looked in both directions for the man. He had disappeared, and I didn't see him anywhere across the street.

With a superhuman effort, I eventually dragged the bag into an alleyway off to the side and left it by a Dumpster. Perhaps I could investigate it later, but I certainly didn't have the strength to lug two-and-a-half cubic feet of concrete all the way back to my house.

In the morning, I went out for a stroll. I entered the pastry shop and purchased a donut, then munched on it while the other city dwellers ambled out of their doors, perhaps on their way to work or out for a stroll, like me.

There was a large group of people gathered around something. Curious, I made my way over to the group and tried to see what was so captivating. I pushed my way to the front, and when I saw what drew everyone's attention, I stopped and fell silent along with them.

There was a deep hole in the pavement. The edges of the hole dimly glowed red, and they seemed to be molten and almost liquid. It was similar to cooling lava. Some parts of some redder lava dripped into the edge of the hole with a quiet sizzling. Another person tried pouring water on the rock, but it didn't seem to cool the rock in the slightest, and a large cloud of steam rose from the crater. After that, no one tried putting anything on the lava.

There were several people brave enough to wander over and take a peek down the hole. They snapped a few pictures and brought them back for the crowd to see. They seemed to be pictures of a long, dark, sewer tunnel and not a hole. The hole was pitch-black, and it was impossible to make judgments on its depth. At the center, however, there was a small pinprick of radiant red light. Plumes of steam sporadically rose up from the crater, so people began avoiding standing right over the hole. Eventually, some news vans showed up to cover the story, and reporters seemed baffled on how to describe the situation. I even saw a single reporter shrug and tell the camera, "There's a hole in the ground."

Later that night, when it was completely dark and only several lights were on in the city, I sneaked back to the alleyway. The edges were still burning red, like the glowing eyes of a monster. I still decided stood over it and I measured the sides; the molten rock made the hole's size shift and change, but it was almost exactly the dimensions of the bag the man handed to me yesterday. 

The next day, I saw the same strange man hurrying down the street. I quickly ducked into a nearby department store and ducked behind a rack of shirts. A passing employee eyed me suspiciously but said nothing. I waited for about five minutes, then walked out of the store. I looked in both directions and saw the same man carrying a black briefcase. He was waiting at the bus stop a few miles away. I tried to inconspicuously sneak off in the other direction, but his head snapped around to look at me like he had a sixth sense or something. 

He jogged over to me. "There you are, young man!" he wheezed. He proffered the briefcase to me. I stared at it with a hint of disgust. "Yesterday, you gave me a block of concrete that'll probably burn a hole to China." I stepped back. "What's for today, a rock that starts the next Ice Age?"

The man dipped his head, but his eyes glinted. "No, and the Block does have a fiery 'personality'." He pointed at the hole. "We've never found a person who could.... wake it up, per se." He paused. "That is, until yesterday. If you can ever retrieve the Block from its current place in the core, it will be much lighter but still the same size, about the weight of a phone." He dropped the briefcase at my feet and promptly turned on his heel to leave. "Goodbye." 

I stared blankly at the case. "Whatever." I left it there in the middle of the sidewalk, and later that day someone threw it in the back of a garbage truck. No one saw the briefcase or the old man ever again.

A/N: Today we got 33² (1089) words. I spread this writing out over the course of a few days, and I had different ideas as I wrote over these days. There isn't really a plot or any sort of main idea, but I feel like that's hard for me to squeeze into roughly 1000 words. Still, this style of writing seems to be beneficial; allowing the "background" part of your brain to develop ideas during every waking moment for a few days, and then bringing those ideas forward into your writing.

Have a good day, and don't forget to drink water.