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The aroma of stale coffee and watery air fills the air as the door
to the well kept office opens. The air's taste changes to the stench
of smoke and soot as a uniformed woman enters.
Her face is reminiscent of a soldier with camoflage paint on his
face, blackened in places by the soot and smoke she is sworn to work
in. Her shirt is soaked through and through,
revealing the outline of her undershirt and bra through the fabric.
Her hair is a mess, matching perfectly the rest of her exhausted 25
year old body.
Stepping
inside, she closes the door behind her, shutting out the organized
racket of trucks backing into the station and her tired charges
working to get ready for the inevitable next call. Throwing her
helmet and coat on the couch that doubles as her duty bed six days
out of the week, she leans back against the door, feeling the
coolness against her back.
Closing her eyes and resting her head back agaist the door, she
rests there momentarily, breathing
shallowly, almost dozing off right there on her feet. Her body
slowly begins to release its tension, almost melting into the cool
metal door.
An anguished scream pierces her revirie, startling her to attention
with a gasp, her heart racing a mile a minute.
The immaculate surroundings of her office stand in perfect contrast
to the carnage cluttering her mind. She listens intently... almost
fearfully for the tell-tale running and yelling that would indicate
the scream was anywhere but in her mind.
She
lets an audible sigh as the signs of trouble never come.
Blinking once... then twice, she straightens and slowly walks to the
desk picking up her stained coffee mug. Pausing at the desk, she
gazes at her family picture, a thin smile crossing her lips.
Staring back at her, the smiling faces of her, her husband, her son,
and her girlfriend. She makes a mental note to call home when she
awakes for morning routine. Her revire turned to horror as the fresh
memories of the tragedy of the past few hours invaded her mind's eye.
Her lip began to quiver slightly, her shoulders slumping, as her
energy drained away.
Walking
around her desk unsteadily, her eyes never left her family as she
carefully sat down. Rubbing her eyes, she firmly shoved the memories
out of her mind and opened the laptop on her desk.
Her eyes narrow, concentrating hard on filling the electronic KFIRS
report form.
(KFIRS=Kentucky
Fire Incident Reporting System) By computer, it would only take her
an average of twenty minutes to finish.
Quickly filling the form fields out as she had done 26,523 times
previous, she finally came down to the field noting fire cause. She
felt sick to her stomach as she typed in the code for
"electrical". Typing a short statement to elaborate, she
inwardly despised the cold, clinical format.
"Improperly installed household appliance"
Only her discipline prevented her from the more harsh wording she
had in mind.
"Absolutely, fucked up wiring job."
Taking a deep breath, she filled the rest of the form out, coming to
the point of the form that enraged her the most. The cost in human terms.
Three of her people were hurt, along with five citizens, three of
which were touch and go.
One of the civilians, a woman, not much older than herself had worse
injuries than the flames could inflict on a body.
Her eyes began to water as she entered "2" in the civilian
fatalities field. Torn between
her discipline, which implored her to distance herself from her
emotions, and her heart,
which cried out in rage and grief, she wouldn't allow her tears to
come to fruition in
the form of a cry she desparately needed.
A single digit number didn't do the loss justice in her mind. A 35
year old man, and his young
4 year old son were the official cost...
Even that wasn't an accurate and telling measure of the toll.
The woman... only 27, lost the love of her whole life... which had
been a hard one every
step of the way. Divorced from an abusive husband just 6 years ago,
she had somehow
found the courage to move on and start the family she wanted. Her
son's birth, restored her hopes just 4 years ago... Tonight... those
hopes perished in just moments, along
with little Robbie, and the father he had been named after. An hour
of hell on earth...
and her home fell to the killing flames. She lost everything.
Only one person, and God, bore horrified witness to the deaths.
The flames were in solid possession of the apartment complex when
they had arrived and sprung
into action. The firefighters were greeted with chaos... and she was
greeted with a
hysterical woman who nearly tackled her as she was donning her white helmet.
The woman screamed that her husband and child were inside.
Her first reaction sent her scurrying into the blaze, ordering her
assistant to take charge.
It was an even uglier situation that she first thought, she realized
as she crawled up the
stairwell, smoke stinging her unprotected eyes... the incredible
heat slowly sapping her
strength. Reaching the third floor... she opened the door to reveal
a sight reminiscent of the very bowels of hell itself.
She spotted the husband, carrying what looked to her to be the
child... An intuition told
her that the child was already dead. She shouted sternly to the man,
calling him to
her and rising to join him. Just as he got withing 15 feet of her, a
fireball exploded out of one of the rooms and into the hall between
them. As she dove to the floor, she shielded her eyes, still trying
to find the man.
A grotesque and bone-chilling scream of anguish met her ears as she
hit the floor of the hallway.
Finding his writhing, burning form, in the flames, her passion to
help bid her to get to her feet...
His screams of torment sent her adrenaline crashing though her to
where she no longer felt the
heat. Moving to her feet, she had no sooner rose than the floor
beneath the man gave way,
dropping the man into the sea of flame below. Her scream of
NOOOOOOO!! was drowned out
by the ferocious crackling of the flames.
How she had gotten out, she didn't recall exactly... She vaguely
remembered following the
life squads to the hospital, wanting to be with the men that had
been hurt trying to reach
the man as he fell to the floor they were working on.
At the hospital... once assured her men were okay, she met the
mother, sitting in the waiting
room.
She knew, from talking to the doctor that neither her husband or son
were alive. As chief it
fell to her to deliver the news, despite the doctor's offer to do so.
The look on the woman's face as she delivered the sad news...
something she would never forget,
or get used to... broke her heart. The woman's anguished cries
brought the team chaplain
and two paramedics running.
She absently rubbed her cheek where the mother had hit her in her
hysteria. She didn't even
feel the wetness of her tear stained face as the woman's words
echoed in her mind...
"You let them die!!! You KILLED THEM!!"
The words cut through to her very soul, as she fought to keep her
composure, pressing her quivering
lips together hard as she pushed the laptop away.
Sobbing quietly, she closed the laptop, struggling to keep her
composure until suddenly, she
broke down crying, her wails of grief muffled to the firefighters
outside in the truck bay, still working... talking about the fire in
quiet tones, their mood subdued as it
always was when lives were lost.
All around her, sitting on shelves, her desk and hanging on the
walls, were the tangible sum
totals of her whole career. A photo of her and her husband when she
was a rookie and he
was a Captain... A newspaper photo of her being carried away to a
waiting helicopter after
she got hurt trying to save one of her men unsuccessfully...
Pictures of her crew working
so many memorable and not so memorable emergencies... a letter
penned by a little boy
she once rescued... a photo of her getting a medal for saving that
same boy...
Marks of a heroine...
Where she dismissed credit for the good she accomplished, so too did
she greedily accept
the blame and guilt. The woman's grief-tainted accusations were but
faint echoes of
the Chief's own personal damnation. One second faster... one foot
further... one ounce of
effort more... the second guessing so overwhelming it was without
focus... a crushing blur
of thoughts and uncontrolled emotions.
Rising as the torrent of tears abated, she stretched out on the
couch to embrace her guilt,
sadness and grief for a night that would undoubtably summon her to
danger once more, even
as she vowed not to subject herself, she knew she would answer that
call again, and again
and again... repeatedly striving to cheat death one more time... to
save a mother the
horror of losing her child... to prevent another bone-chilling
scream of agony... to save
another from bearing witness to the cruelty of consuming death by fire.
Falling asleep amid her momentos of a job done well, the essence of
the price she paid would
be left in a wet and blackened pillow and the new scar among many
she wore beneath her badge forever more. |
