The Fire in our Hearts

The Steam Stack

The Ash Tray ended being a room literally filled with ash. It looked like a place where fire came to die. The floor and walls were covered in a film of black. Burned out wood, coals, and various other burned remains filled the room with a smoky smell. “SO, The Ash Tray. Pretty obvious what it is. This is the garbage room for Heat Keeping. All day the ruins of fire are pushed down chutes into this room. It never ends. BUT it is your lucky day because it has just gotten to the point where the chutes are backing up so we must clean! First we have to clean the purification system. Then the actual room needs to be spotless! And actually you are lucky because you get some real clothes!”
As Big C said this the two ladies who had given us the box of necessities appeared. They asked for our size this time. I told them I was an extra-small but they only had smalls so my ‘real’ clothes were still too big. We ended up ripping another shirt and using the pieces to tie my extra fabric to the side. Then they handed us what looked like overalls and a jacket. I slipped into the overalls and buttoned the jacket. Lastly, they handed us helmets that had visors to protect our eyes. “SO,” it seemed this was the way he started most of his sentences, “let’s fix that purifier!”
The purifier was basically a massive tank with three pipes where ash was put in to be cleaned. It was cleaned because if it went into the air it would cause major problems. The purification system consisted of three stages: getting the ash in water, putting chemicals in the water to completely dissolve all toxins, than boil the water and the steam would go out through the pipes. “So the smoke we saw coming in was actually steam? But why was it so dark?”
“It was a mix. Obviously we can’t ‘catch’ the smoke so the best we can do is collect the ash afterwards.” Big C said leading us towards a door. He opened the door and it was a platform with pulleys. “Everybody grab a rope. We’re going up.” Everyone found a rope to hold onto and on Big C’s signal we all pulled. It was surprisingly easy to haul ourselves; probably because we were all pulling our own weight. But it was long and I could feel my heart starting to beat faster. It was a tiny platform and we were packed like sardines. I was stuck in the middle of the group and I felt as though I was being constricted. I tried to focus on the rope I was tugging on but every time someone would hit me igniting fear within me. When the wall split open I was thankful for the sight of an exit.
The wall had broken apart and Big C led us onto another platform. My heart was now pounding with excitement instead of fear. It was impossibly long and equally wide. The smooth grey walls curved flawlessly broken by nothing. The room was hot and sweat started to dot the back of my neck. I looked up at hole in the top. It had a filter in it that caught the last of the bad stuff that might float up. “Woah…” I breathed.
“This is my favorite part of your first two weeks.” Big C chuckled. “Put these on.” He threw us harnesses. I struggled to put it in and ended needing help from Big C. The harness felt a little silly because it actually fit and held in all my bagginess. Then clangs reverberated off the flawless walls. “Hook these into the loops on the front of your harnesses.” We did as told. “Now jump.”
“What?” Leo exclaimed. “What do you mean jump?”
“You know what it means, don’t play dumb with me.”
“You can’t expect as to launch ourselves off this already flimsy platform.”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do.” And with that Big C flew off the landing and plummeted down cackling all the way down.
“Oh my god… he didn’t just…” trembled Leo.
“No, he couldn’t have.” I barked at him but even my confidence was wavering. We stared over the edge quiet as death.
“Boo!” Big C’s big face was now right in front of the red-head’s who flew back with a yelp. “Gotch’ya.” I smiled at his childish humor.
“That wasn’t funny!” Leo said seeming shaken.
“Just demonstrating your next task. You’re gonna do exactly that. But what you should know is to go down you press this,” he grabbed an oval disk on his lifeline. It had two buttons on it, an up and down arrow. “and to go up you push this. Now, that’s the simple part. These will just bring you directly up and down. But we need to clean the walls. So to get to the sides you have to rock yourselves back and forth. But, we’ll get there. First you gotta jump.”
Now, I like risks but this seemed dumb; all that was connecting me was this little clip. But then I remembered it was connected to Big C and holding him up, and I was about 1/3 of him. So gulping terrified, I stopped all brain function and stepped forward.