The Haunted Traveler May 2017 Edition

105
thuds on the pavement. Then I saw Rosa, standing in
a window on the eighth floor. She waved a handkerchief,
closed her eyes, and jumped. Her burning dress
snagged on a wire halfway down, and there she hung,
screaming. I could swear she saw me, and reached for
me until her dress burnt all the way through, and she
dropped the rest of the way.
“Look what you’ve done!”
At the trial, it was revealed that there were too many
other things wrong at Triangle Shirtwaist: locked
doors, blocked exits.
“Look what you’ve done!?
Narrow corridors. A rusted fire escape. The lack of a
sprinkler system.
“Look what you’ve done! You fool!”
I married (I saw Rosa). I had a daughter (I saw
Rosa). I grew old (I saw Rosa).
I died.
I awoke with the smell of melted gum and exhaust
thick around me, and my back on something warm and
hard. Buildings rose to the sky, but at first, they were
nothing I recognized. Some of them were boarded up,
and appeared to be abandoned; others had signs noting
they were homes to garment makers. Then I discovered
that they were familiar … white, gray, brown cast
iron with elegant facades, some with scrollwork, some
with cherubs, fleurs-de-lis. I was on Greene Street, but
devoid of human life.
The sun set, its dying rays glinting off the windows
of the building that once housed the Triangle Shirtwaist
Factory. A building, that in after years, belonged