The Hero

Now, I am bored. The spring season this year has been a rainy one, leaving the air smelling of excited worms wriggling around the darkened concrete. This was a very slow season for firefighters, and I miss it. We are forgotten for our fantastic deeds, but soon people will be reminded.

Before getting home, I stopped to fill up my car’s tank. I decided to fill an extra gallon of gasoline on the side, too. Slowly through the suburbs I stalked. Wondering which house would look best on the front cover, which house would need saving.

There, a small home, a humble home. A lush flower garden out front of a large living room window where a young family lives. An SUV in the driveway, a man and woman getting out of it in a hurry to avoid the spitting rain on their way to the front door. They laugh and smile, and chuckle, and – Oh, my hero. She’s pregnant. I feel a foreignly familiar twinge of excitement jolt to my fingertips.

I could see it:
‘Hero Firefighter Saves Pregnant Woman from Terrifying House Fire!’

Yes…this will do nicely.

I flicked the seventies rock station on as I slowly trailed through the suburb, waiting for dark, growing in excitement with each passing moment. I coasted until sunset, when the rain let up, just for me. I left my car after parking on the street over. Skipping through now-darkened paths, I approach their living room window with the gallon of gasoline in hand. She sat and gazed at the young gentleman as he cooked her dinner and she rested her feet from carrying her child around all day. I ducked and shimmied under the sight line of the window, then I slunk around back of their home.

One of the most common ways for house fires to start is a malfunctioning of appliances such as a stovetop, oven, dryer, and especially electric heaters protruding from the back of a house like a misplaced tetris block.

Once the deed was done, I hurried back to my car with only a quarter of the gasoline in the tank sloshing around mockingly. I whipped my car door open, painfully aware of my lights shining through the neighbourhood like a beacon. I shut the doors and sat heavily onto my car seat as my heart pounded up in my temples. The reality, the finality of what I had done hit me. I thought for only a moment of going back and snuffing the flame, but it would be too soon, there would have been no heroism in that act, only cowardice. Did I waver in trusting my own abilities? It couldn’t be. I took a deep breath and turned my eyes to the sky waiting for my smoke signal to call me into action.

Finally, I saw it. Rising above the suburban home and shrouding the stars trying to poke through the night sky. I grinned. It looked like they needed a firefighter over there. What were the chances? I just so happened to be in the neighborhood. My engine whined to a grumble and I shot off, heart racing ahead of my car in anticipation with an even higher RPM.

I screeched to a halt to see that the fire had caught very well. Bursting from the home’s pores were pulses and flashes of red hot flames. A crowd of dumbfounded neighbors gathered around, some calling other firefighters, but I would never let them have my battle. I jumped out of my car, this was urgent, those people needed saving!

“What’s going on?” I shouted, lumbering over.