Fade To Black

Asha had just left the best meeting of her innocent, twenty-four-year-old life. Making this particular day, the greatest day ever in her young existence.

"Hi!" Asha practically yelled to the driver as she got on the bus.

She couldn't stop her profuse smiling, the whole stroll to the back of the bus. She received a few weird and pessimistic looks on the way, but nothing was going to permeate her forcefield of genuine bliss. She was elated. And for good reason.

Asha had been creative writing since she was an elementary kid. It was her passion, her goal, and in her mind, her purpose in life.

She was at the earlier meeting (her twelfth of the month), accompanied by her agent, pitching her first book. And so, when she was given a twenty-thousand-dollar advance on her promised, soon-to-be finished (Sci-Fi mostly? Asha explained that it crossed genres seamlessly, and it was obvious that this publisher liked that) novel...the feelings of vindication and gratefulness were overwhelming.

Twenty thousand dollars was not life-altering money, even for the cliché, broke, young author. But, when that check was handed over to her, her name staring back at her on the "Pay to the Order Of" line...it did, from that moment on, alter her life.

What the hell am I gonna do with the money? Asha thought. I don't know...maybe a car? She made a forced thinking look on her face. Nah! What for?! I got the bus. I know, I'll definitely get a new laptop...

Her laptop had crashed a little more than nine months ago. It really didn't matter to her, as she had her phone, and she preferred to write exclusively in longhand form. (Much to the dismay of her agent. She would always say to Asha, "Practice typing and get your work saved...somewhere! Don't be dumb, Ash.")

As the warnings of her agent echoed in her mind, Asha looked at her trusty little black notebook, because her longhand habits stretched to her notes as well. She just felt more alive, that the process was more real or organic when physically writing something down.

Asha now placed her Little Black Book, as she liked to call it, in her lap, admiring it...loving it. The Little Black Book was personalized, with the words, "ASH THOUGHTS", across the hard cover of the notebook. Asha did not splurge on many things, if any, except for what she wrote on. The personalization cost more, as did the expanded notebooks titled, “MY BOOK” in her apartment. She was writing her manuscript in those notebooks, and it was beyond worth it to her. She absolutely loved them. They made her feel like a real "writer".

Her Little Black Book never left her side, as it went literally everywhere with her. It was her confidant, journal, and holder of her sacred book ideas and notes all wrapped up in one. It was her "lifeblood" to her novel that was going to be a masterpiece.

I think I'll just pay off the remaining five months on my apartment. That way, I don't have to keep scrounging around for it and can just relax. That hired gun crap for crappy articles in crappy magazines or crappy websites is driving me, fur real, insane...

Besides, there was the promise of more money and a possible book deal if her novel started to take off in any sort of way. And she just knew it would. Asha had been visualizing it and manifesting her book for years. She believed to her core that the mind was an infinite tool, capable of virtually anything you could think of. That meeting and that advance were signals that her beliefs were finally coming to fruition after all her hard work and relentless dedication.

Asha closed her eyes and put her head back to rest on the back bus wall. At the same time, she pulled her Little Black Book against her breasts, and she kept smiling with LBB secured to her chest for practically the whole ride back to her little apartment.

*

*

"People, heads up. We might be gettin' stuck for a bit," the bus driver announced over the speakers.

Even before she opened her eyes, Asha could hear the loud siren screeches of firetrucks and police cars. Nothing new in that part of town, but then she saw and realized where everyone was fixed. The permanent smile immediately vanished and was quickly replaced with sheer fear and panic.

Her apartment building was engulfed in flames...

Asha ran to the front of the bus. "Oh my God...NOOOO!" somehow, the last word shrieked, did not crack every window on the bus.

"Let me out!" Asha pleaded in a scream.

The bus driver did not hesitate and opened the folding doors. Asha raced out of the bus towards the chaos.

What happened next was a scene straight out of the movies. It's amazing how life imitates art in certain situations.

Asha ran up on the crowd, pushed her way through all of them, even at her petite size, and was making a direct line for what used to be the entrance of her building. She was of course grabbed and stopped by two firemen before she got too close to anything dangerous. But they had to use everything they had to hold her back, as she fought to get free, kicked and screamed. In the struggle, she had dropped LBB and her phone on the now soaked patch of grass in front of the building.

"Ma'am! You can't go in there! There's nothing and no one in there!" shouted one of the firefighters.

In that moment, she didn't care if anyone was in there. That wasn't even a thought in her mind. All she could think of was one damn thing.

Her manuscript.

"Let...me...GO!" Asha screamed. "I need to get it!"

"Get what ma'am?! There's no one in there! What do you need?!"

"My book! I gotta save it! Please..." Asha stopped struggling and dropped to her knees, sobbing now. "I gotta save it...I gotta save it..."

The two firemen just stared at each other, both dumbfounded and thinking the same thing. Did she really say, 'My book!'?

*

*

When Asha was finally somewhat calmed, the firemen explained what had happened after initial inspections during and after the fire. The fact that it started in her apartment and that she was responsible, only compounded her feeling of hopelessness. It was the typical scenario that Asha was the culprit of today.

She left the iron plugged in, the outlet shorted, it sparked thrown out paper from her crappy article writings, and you know the rest. Her manuscript was less than a foot away, and had no chance.

Asha started to shake uncontrollably and she started to hyperventilate sitting in the back of an ambulance. If you had seen it, it would have been very painful to watch her being unable to handle her agony, pain, and guilt. The guilt was the overpowering one, knowing that she was the one that caused the loss of her life's work, really. To know that all that she had worked for her entire life, was gone up in flames in an instant? It was devastating and was quickly sending her spiraling downward. Asha was breaking, cracking from the inside. She didn't know what to do.

She vomited all over herself and one of the EMT's. She felt like dying.

*

*

The aftermath of that day and night was a complete blur to her. Asha somehow managed to check herself into a nearby, old, fifteen-story, hotel. Her agent came by to give her some clothes, food, and water. She was like Asha's only "friend". Asha was always immersed in her work anyway, and had no time for even pets, let alone most annoying people.

"Anything you need, Ash. You just call me...you hear me?" Her agent gently grabbed Asha's chin and lifted it. "Look at me. Anything, ok?"

"Ok. I just need to be alone right now. Thank you for everything," Asha tried to give her a half smile. It didn't really work.

"Come here, give me a hug," her agent said as they embraced. "Don't worry, we'll figure this out." Her agent gave her a kiss on the forehead, then turned and headed down the hallway to the hotel elevator. Asha slowly closed the door to her room and went straight to the bed. LBB and her phone were next to her, both saved by an onlooker during her struggle. She kept thinking about the euphoric start to the day, and how that seemed like decades ago...

*

*

Asha was standing on the ledge of the rooftop of the hotel, her back facing the unbeknownst traffic and lives below. She was clutching her Little Black Book to her chest, very tight. LBB was not going to be left behind on this journey. She was balancing now, by her toes only, her heels with nothing under them. She had made her decision. There was a pause...

Asha began free falling backwards, her arms wrapped around LBB and staring up at her bare feet. And then instantaneously...

Did I just see someone looking over at me??? She thought.

From her vantage point, she could have sworn that some figure peered over the rooftop as she started her decent. Was she pushed? Or was this figure just "spectating"? At this point in time though, what did it matter? It'd all be over in a few seconds, right?

Yes and no...

*

*

SECOND #1

During the first second, Asha closed her eyes and felt the raging adrenaline rush of free falling and then...nothing. Everything went black. Pitch black. She saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. She was in some kind of massive void of nothingness.

Then suddenly, she was in a first-person point of view camera, so to speak, working on a laptop. It was her; she was working...on her laptop, in her apartment, she was typing out her finished novel, her masterpiece.

This went on and on with her life. Asha was living out her life and experiencing everything in real time (our concept of time).

Finished book, bestseller, book deal, money, fame, marriage and two kids...writing and family were her life.

Year after astounding year went by, and after the first second, Asha had lived the next twenty years of her life, and it was quite amazing...

*

*

SECOND #2

In the next (second) block of time, another twenty years went by and Asha was faced with a little more adversity. Divorce, middle-age, empty nest, menopause, and many other basic life things.

But she did remarry, and the last ten years started to go back up. Although, starting with the last ten years, the camera view was changing from first-person to her just viewing her life from the outside...like a movie.

*

*

SECOND #3 - IMPACT

This round, she lived out the twilight of her life. And even though the camera was exclusively on movie view and panning out further and further with each subsequent year, Asha was genuinely happy with her life. She traveled even more, took care of her grandkids, and still managed to knock out a book almost every year.

Then, twenty-four years into this block (second), Asha saw her eighty-eight-year-old self on her own bed, looking ready to pass on. And to Asha's astonishment, her older self, looked right into the camera and said...

"You've lived a long, full life. You can rest now. It's ok." And her older self then looked away like the camera wasn't there, the way it always had been and closed her (their) eyes.

Everything went totally black again...the movie was over.

Asha fell for a little over three seconds to her death, landing on an unsuspecting car at the bottom.

Upon looking closer, she was seen to be smiling with her eyes closed, clinging to her Little Black Book...