The force inside me said, Touch the burning schoolhouse or everyone in your family will die.

On My Mind | Story from Anecdotes

Burning Schoolhouse

One day as I was walking to school, I came upon a discarded
burning-schoolhouse firework on the sidewalk, which was only
burned on one side. A dud.

I glanced at it and then attempted to continue on my way
until I was struck by a force within me that I could not control.
The force pulled me back toward the firework and said, You
must touch this firework or everyone in your family will die.
Each time I tried to walk away from the burning schoolhouse,
I was convinced I was sealing the death of everyone I
loved. Against my better judgment—because I knew fireworks
could be dangerous—I touched it, and just like that the force
that had controlled me completely went away.

Off I went to school, where I forgot about the burning
schoolhouse until my walk home that afternoon, when I came
upon it again. By this point the burning schoolhouse appeared
to be flattened by a car or bike or someone’s foot.

Once again, the force inside me said, Touch the burning
schoolhouse or everyone in your family will die. However, this time
when I touched the burning schoolhouse, the force did not go
away. Instead, it grew bigger and bigger. First it told me to touch
the burning schoolhouse ten times and then twenty and then
thirty, until finally it said, Bring the burning schoolhouse home or
everyone in your family will die.

As soon as I picked up the burning schoolhouse, the terrible
force dissipated, and I immediately felt better again. I tried
to put the burning schoolhouse in the garage, and then in the
basement, but it demanded that it come inside the house and
be placed in my clothes closet.

The next day it demanded to be placed inside my bed and
then under my pillow and finally inside my pillowcase, where I
had to sleep on it or everyone in my family would die.
The burning schoolhouse would not be satisfied. Each day
it demanded more and more of me. It demanded that I touch
it fifty, one hundred, two hundred times before I could do anything
else.

It would not let me have a single moment of rest.
One day my mother found the burning schoolhouse in my
pillowcase when she changed my sheets.

Upon discovering the burning schoolhouse was missing, I
demanded to know where it was. She said she had thrown it in
the trash and the garbage truck took it away.

I was inconsolable until my mother said, “If you don’t calm
down, I’m going to have to take you to the hospital.”
Then she gave me cold milk with brown sugar in it and sent
me to bed.

Before long, the burning schoolhouse became a distant
memory, and I found other objects to touch—the toaster, the
paring knife with the broken handle, bobby pins, the frozen
metal fence outside my school—so I could keep everyone safe.

“The Burning Schoolhouse” by Kathryn Mockler from Anecdotes, published with permission by Book*hug Press. © 2023.

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