Daily Flash Fiction Challenge

Word Count: 298

Water oozed from the ceiling in tiny, trickling streams, pooling above Barbara’s collection. The smallest vases—those that had once held perfumes, oils, and organs—were already in the kitchen. They, at least, were safe.

Frantic, Barbara flew through the house, looking for anything to protect the massive Greek amphorae. Slippers slapping against the rotten, wooden floor, she rushed from closet to cupboard to pantry. Arms laden with anything remotely waterproof, she burst into the study.

Of her twenty-seven piece collection, seven were too heavy for Barbara to move. Painted with regular, intricate patterns, they dated back to the geometrical period—over 2900 years ago. Enamored with the symmetry of mathematics, the Greeks had decorated their earthenware with ebony shapes and figures celebrating the simple beauty of geometry. Barbara’s favorite stood as the centerpiece and featured mirrored bands of triangles and hexagons that seemed to shift and flow before her eyes. She had never been able to copy that illusion, that clockwork motion; what the Greeks had shaped and painted resisted every modern effort—no three-dimensional scanner or programmable potter’s wheel could replicate it.

A flash of light flooded the room, followed by a crash. The house trembled; the water trickling from the ceiling became a flow. Lightning must have struck the roof again! Barbara tried to cover the remaining clay jugs, spreading a camping tarp over one, stuffing an umbrella into another. As she moved to cover a third, she cried out. The vase, featuring Hector’s final battle charge against the Achaens, was soaked. Unglazed, unprotected, the paint marking out the Trojan hero was splotched, faded.

Overcome with grief, with devastation, Barbara managed a bitter chuckle. If nothing else, she had motivation now. Before she had tried making copies. Now, if she succeeded—it would be original!