for Sue Vincent’s #writephoto Photo Prompt
Flames licked the smoke-filled night sky. Banging, crackling, and the sound of exploding windows echoed all around. Shards of glass flew through the air as flaming masonry crashed to the ground shooting showers of orange sparks skyward. Convinced everybody had escaped unharmed, the firemen scurried from the burning apartment block, their suits blackened by the inferno still raging within.
‘Stand well back’ shouted the Fire Chief as a massive explosion shook the very ground they stood on, and balls of fire rained down from on high.
*
‘He’s coming round’.
The paramedics were risking their lives staying so close to the scene whilst tending a man trapped under fallen brickwork. ‘Quiet everyone. He’s trying to say something. John, can you hear me? What are you trying to tell us?’
‘Get Carol, I beg you’ he cried.
‘Where is she, John?’
‘Up there. Just get my little girl’ he whimpered. ‘Please’.
‘The poor little thing’s only seven’ shouted a voice from the crowd.
‘I can hear someone’ a person yelled.
‘So can I’ called another.
‘Kill the pumps. Silence everyone’ hollered the Fire Chief.
A plaintive cry came from on high and all eyes stared up at the only part of the block that had so far escaped the flames. A tiny face appeared.
‘Daddy, Daddy. Where are you?’
‘We can’t reach her, there’s no choice, she’ll have to jump’. The firemen stretched their net. ‘Jump child, jump now’.
She pulled herself onto a window ledge then screamed as she leapt into the air.
John raised an arm. Then it dropped to the ground. His eyes closed. He was gone.
*
Exactly twenty have passed since that day. A young lady enters a garden where the apartment block once stood. She places a bunch of flowers on a bench and gently strokes the words carved into its backrest.
‘Daddy, we passed each other as you flew to heaven. Carol x’ .
Keith's Ramblings 
A sad tale, in spite of Carol’s survival, Keith.
Thank you for taking part this week.
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The pleasure’s all mine, Thank you Sue.
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🙂
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lovely,,,,,,,,,,,
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Thank you, Di.
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So bittersweet.
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Thank you, Mimi.
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So touching story.
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Thanks for dropping by Sadje
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Always a pleasure.
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Thanks so much Sue
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So beautifully sad…
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Thanks so much for dropping by.
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So sad and sweet 😦
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Thank so much
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Today, I went to the beachfront with my children. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is entirely off topic but I had to tell someone!
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