The flaming pillow

• Mathew Miller, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2006

As I searched through the attic, under the piles of Mr. Bean videos and toys, I discovered in the corner a single piece of burnt, dusty cloth. Memories started flooding back in of my full sized pillow, clutched in my four year old hands, watching and laughing contentedly at the antics of Mr. Bean. Remembering the way grime and dirt was collected as I dragged the pillow behind me. The way I squeezed it as I slept in the back seat of the car and my stubbornness, not wanting it washed for fear that it would be lost forever.

These memories were flooding back in, about the happiness that I had with my pillow, but they also brought back the horror that has haunted me forever, the horror of that one fateful night, that one awful mistake, where the pillow that I once had, would almost certainly be lost forever. That night where I had the pillow too close to the heater, and one of the corners too close to the flame. The flame took hold, smouldering yellow, consuming my pillow, and out it was flung, onto the back concrete yard.

The hose burst to life, smothering the crippling flames, but the pillow that I had once had, the happiness that I had once known would now be never more.

Now, here I was, standing in the attic, recalling these memories as clearly as yesterday. Memories that brought happiness, memories that brought torture, all of them recalled by this insignificant scrap of burnt, dusty cloth. I popped it in my pocket, as a token of the devastation that I suffered, the loss that I had taken, of my comfortable, wonderful pillow.