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Cheryl had a long morning shift and she was ready for a break. She was a mature businesswoman for a middling company. She was one of the only smokers among her fellow employees. This made smoke breaks a rather useful little ritual, a way to escape to solitude for a few minutes. She walked out the familiar back exit. She saw the table and bench in the shade, with an old, black, plastic ashtray on it. She took a seat as she rummaged through her purse looking for her cigs and lighter. She placed the cigarette between her lips and lit it up. She didn't realize she wasn't as alone as she normally was.
An hour earlier, it seemed like it was a perfectly normal day in Colorado Springs. Then, suddenly, the area which used to be a city with over 400,000 residents was instantly teleported in a flash, leaving behind a giant crater. Anyone who wasn't in the city had no idea where it went. Those in the city didn't know either, at least not immediately. Everything outside of the city limits was black or gray, dark and depressing. Far away, they saw giant mountains of ash. There was an ambient smell of tobacco smoke all around, replacing most other scents. Panic stuck the city before they even realized their whole city had shrunken to the size of a quarter and was at the bottom of an ashtray.
Things were scary enough for the tiny, insignificant citizens before Cheryl came outside for her break. They could hear the sounds of her flats against hard concrete before they could see her. The relatively short walls of the ashtray rose far above the city and obstructed their view. As she sat, the metal structure holding the table and bench shook. The light motion was like an earthquake for everyone in the city. Some buildings didn't make it.
The tiny citizens got a view of Cheryl as part of her body was above the ashtray. They couldn't see her face, it was obscured from their point of view under her ample bust. They did however see the plume of smoke that escaped from her mouth as she gently exhaled after her first puff. They also saw her holding her cig between two fingers, with red polished nailed, after taking it from her lips. The tinies looked up at Cheryl with a mix of emotions. Some continued to panic, some paused in awe. She was more than a mountain of a woman. She was a super volcano.
Cheryl was lost in thought as she took a puff of her cigarette and took it out of her mouth. It was such a serene time of the day. She didn't even look at her phone anymore during her smoke breaks. It was just too perfect a time be alone with her own thoughts, she didn't want to ruin that with yet another screen.
As she continued to smoke away, ash accumulated on he end of her cigarette. She needed to make use of her ashtray. Without giving it another thought, she brought her cig down to the tray and gave it a hearty tap. Luckily for Colorado Springs, the large clump of ash didn't fall on the city. Less fortunate for them, some ashes did. Some wayward embers floated casually away from the cigarette toward the city. It was only two, but it was more than enough to cause devastation. The tiny specks of burning paper came crashing down like meteorites in different parts of the city, blazing trails of crumbled concrete and fire on the tract of land they touched down on.
Cheryl continued to smoke, oblivious to the tiny city below. While everyone was screaming in terror watching their world be torn apart by mere debris, their cries were far too quiet to reach her gigantic ears.
In only a few moments, her cigarette was smoked right down to the butt. Smoke breaks don't last forever, only a few moments. It was time to go back to work. But first, she had to deal with the trash. She took the remaining stub from her mouth. It was a bit stained with her red lipstick at this point. She simply did as she had done countless times before: she smushed the tip of the butt into the ashtray, twisted it a few times, and never thought about it again. She stood up, grabbed her purse, and walked back into the office.
This marked the end of the tiny city. They were under the butt as it came down upon them. The end of it was still hot, and weight was far more than enough to crush everything. The city was gone in a second, with one last pulse of terror spreading throughout as it approached. Most of the city was crushed by the initial smush. Much of the remaining city was ground to dust by the twist. A few areas on the very outskirts managed to survive, but there was absolutely nothing left for them.
Cheryl, upon entering the office, began to hear about the world shattering news that happened in Colorado. She would never learn how closely involved she was with the story.