Four Alarm Fire #15

Four Alarm Fire #15

Jon the firefighter started. Why was he seeing these pictures? They plagued him enough in his nightmares. There was something though that was familiar about this picture. Moving closer to it Jon realized he could feel the heat of the flames. Looking around he saw the plaque for it. October 17th 2002. Yes he remembered now. It was the fire at the library, on Main Street. The longer he stared at it the more the flames in the picture danced and twist. The heat grew to an almost unbearable level. He remembered that fire as he remembered them all. With fear, pain, loss. All the feelings that came with a firefighter’s job. He remembered having to tell the wives of the 3 that died that they would never be returning. And the 6 he visited in the hospital. Jon moved to the next picture. This time it was a picture of a house. The fire hungrily devouring the sides, Flames licking up the side of the house. This time the plaque read May 1st 2003. The memory came back. The small house set afire the paint curling from the heat, the crackle of burning wood. The cry of a young child, the scream of parents, and the whump as the water came streaming from the hose. It was too much. Jon felt tears of rage and loss run down his face. It was too much. He quickly moved onto the next picture. This to held to much emotion for him. Turning away he felt an urgency to be somewhere, to be doing something. There at the end of the hallway was a picture he had missed. It was a picture of a school. This time the heat and the flames were almost to much. the plaque he read was October 9th 2009. that was today wasn’t it? Why was he here instead of there? What the crap was going on? He turned to see if there were other pictures but this was the last. He realized it was the end of his fire fighting career. Jon was confused, he had sworn to never stop fighting fires. Then why was this the last one on the wall? There wasn’t even space for more pictures. Then it hit him. He wouldn’t stop fighting fires unless he was dead. Jon didn’t want to believe this. The fire from the picture was breaking out from the borders. The picture was curling at the edges; the heat was pushing farther out. The flames erupted and burned the pictures of his previous life.
Consuming his life.
Consuming him.
Consuming everything.
Fire was greedy. It wanted to have everything and in the end it did. Fire won.