Combustion

By Lynne Sherbondy

/ First Place, 2026 Plentitudes Prize in Flash /      

Combustion—the process of burning something; a chemical reaction that occurs between a fuel and an oxidizing agent.

It started on a hot summer night at a party I didn’t really want to go to. I hated these parties. They always started late. They were always in someone’s cramped condo on the other side of town. This one—another send-off for yet another one of us in our early twenties bound for NYC, determined to take Broadway by storm—started at midnight. In a condo. Across town. Local actors were constantly leaving for NYC, so this kind of party was constantly happening and completely predictable. It would be full of overly animated actors, most of whom I knew; if not, I’d pretend I did. We’d fawn over each other, rave about one another’s latest performance in the last production of whatever. You were amazing in that! Kiss. Kiss. No one ever meant it. They’d all be there. Phony and fun at the same time. But I was no different. I was one of them. So, as usual, I went.

When I arrived, the party was just getting started. People were straggling in. Some were stoned; some were on a mission to end up that way. The split-level condo was dark, smokey, but strangely clean. The Commodores were singing “Easy Like Sunday Morning” as the host, who I once dated, swanned over to me in his open white shirt. He was high on acid and said he was happy to see me. I bummed a cigarette from him, grabbed a drink, and found a place to perch just as the guest of honor appeared at the top of a tiny spiral staircase. She stood with her long blonde hair loose and flowing as her icicle blue eyes scanned the room below, looking for someone who clearly wasn’t there; looking out of place, like she’d already left for New York, and this late-night party was just a final to-do on some boring goodbye checklist.

We made eye contact. I was one of the acceptable few who she could comfortably acknowledge. She came downstairs and sat across from me near the spot I’d claimed on the couch. We liked each other but weren’t friends, mostly because we competed for the same roles. She’d just beat me out for the ingenue lead in Summer Rep, but was gracious about it, joking that the director kept wanting her to give my line readings. I grinned, an equally gracious loser. She

asked if I had a cigarette. I didn’t but offered to go find us some. She said she’d save my seat if I’d also find us some drinks, then winked.

By the time I returned, the host, the high, and the hangers-on had all circled her like moths to a flame. She was now holding court from the center of the sofa. On seeing me, this small pond queen gestured like royalty for me to come, take my rightful place beside her. We sat there for almost three hours, chain-smoking Marlboros, downing Mojitos, listening to insufferable conversation that teetered between drunken casting rants from endlessly overlooked actors, to the horde who continually tried to curry favor with her (You were amazing in that!) for any special audition tip or trick she might offer that they, too, might use for their shot at success. Throughout, she kept one leg pressed hard against mine as if we were the only two people in a tight lifeboat, desperate not to sink.

After a while it was all too much of the usual all too much, so I stood up to go. She grabbed my wrist and whispered, “Do not leave me here.” We went outside. The asphalt that baked all day under a hot sun had become a warming oven. Standing on it was like standing in a sauna. She looked over at me in the suffocating heat and lit her last cigarette. For a second, I saw myself in her eyes where we were both wondering who we were, what we wanted, where we

were going. That was right before she kissed me, and my life exploded.