The Anchor

The Newspaper

There once was a newspaper that sat on a shelf, it watched the world go by. It had been put up there by a rather tall man and hadn't been moved for generations since. Everyday people would hurry about the old coffee shop, completely ignoring its presence 10 feet and one foot to the left in accordance with the door. A little black door, older than the newspaper itself and thick with paint to cover the peeling that came with the regular pounding it faced. And everyday, every costumer that entered would pull upon the bell and let the jangling bell echo through the now yellow pages. As they sat by the tall window at the front of the shop, looking out at the small, ever changing town, the wonderful scent of ground beans would drift up and soak into the yellow paper. The sun pouring through the window, pulling hearts to the rickety wooden tables in front of if, would eat away at the once fresh ink of the paper until it was little more than a shadow.

Of course out of the corner of their eyes some people saw it. Despite how well it blended in with the cream colored walls, it was bound to be spotted. That didn't mean anyone would ever remember it enough to even think that at the shelf of a coffee shop was a newspaper, as old as the shop itself. It wasn't a thing that stood out in anyone's mind, if they even realized it was there. It would watch from its perch as years went by, until it was so thick with dust it could see no more. Then, time went by without its guiding gaze, not like it mattered. The once hot stories that filled its pages were little more than pointless now. An ad sat for a bankrupt company until it faded into nothing. The warnings it's presence should have heeded had long been forgotten. The horrid things it sold to a fearful world were now more vanilla than the lattes on the menu. The people didn't know it's purpose, but ignored it all the same. The man who had subconsciously placed it higher than he should've, had already forgotten buying it by the time the bell rang as he left and he was long dead now.

The only thing left of him was his newspaper sitting on a shelf, screaming a warning the folk in the shop all but evaded. Soon, the shop was empty. No bell ringing, no coffee wafting to the rafters. It was all rejected when the first siren went off. People rushed out not daring to look back as they ran for the comfort of their homes or safety of the nearest shelter. The bombs rained down and pelted the ancient brick road, filling it with more potholes than 200 years of constant use could. The inviting windows were all but blown out during the first wave and before the second, the smoke and dust had already coated the inside of the shop. The bombarding shook the old building to its very core. The self was close to death, the newspaper along with it. Then, by the time the last bomb hit the air the newspaper had fluttered down from its high home and settled itself on the filthy floor amongst other rubble.

Survivors rushed past the next morning, assessing the damage and looking for anyone that might not have been so lucky. If that had only brushed off the dirt of the paper, they would have seen the reflection of carnage around them printed on the opening page. But they again ignored it, trapped in their own worlds and the paper sat in the dirt until it was swept up with debris and doomed to rotting away in the dark.