My Flash Fiction contribution for today. Starter sentence in blue, as always.
"As the sixth shot of whisky burnt its way down, I suddenly remembered what I left the house for." I picked up the gas can, sprinkled around the local branch of my bank, tossed the gas can through the window, lit every match I had and and flung them here and there along the trail of gas, hoping for the best. Or the worst, depending on your point of view. I heard the alarm going off behind me, but I didn't care anymore. Let them throw me in jail; at least I'd have a roof over my head and something to eat. I had nothing left to lose.
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Sandy Partridge was working the night shift at the 9-1-1 response center. When she saw the alarm call come in, and where it came from, she disregarded it and turned it off with glee. No people would be hurt, and the branch was a stand-alone building so no neighboring businesses would be affected by the bank's destruction, so her conscience was clear. Fuck them and their late fees.
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The firefighters and paramedics at Station 5 smelled smoke. Was it someone's fireplace, they wondered? It couldn't be someone's outdoor fire pit; this was the middle of winter. Why was there no alarm sounding? They told the newbie to look outside. He saw the glow, he heard the alarm, and they hopped into their engine to take a look. Upon seeing the bank in flames, they stood by to make sure no spark traveled to cause problems for anyone else, and waited while the building turned to rubble. They felt no reason to save it.
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When employees showed up to open the bank the next morning and found it destroyed, they just turned around and went home, grateful to escape another day of screaming customers. They were relieved not to be justifying their employer's outrageous abuses toward its customers for one more day. The bank didn't pay them a living wage, anyway.
Nobody showed up to arrest the arsonist. The police were done protecting the predators who destroyed their friends and neighbors for their own enrichment. As news of the bank's demise spread, and the apathy with which it was met, copycat arsonists took down banks everywhere.
People turned to bartering as a means of exchange. Everyone was happy except the lazy rich people, who had no known skill and thus had to rely on the charity of others. Although, the guys who made silk top hats and monocles weren't too happy at first, but they learned to make other stuff and survived just fine.
