Enjoy!
Embers
The fireman who found her was young, inexperienced, a little
bit afraid. His uniform was slightly too large, and he always followed the
rules. He was determined and earnest. He
was the kind of young man that mothers say is a sweet boy and fathers say is a
good kid.
In short, he was unprepared for what faced him.
It was an old house, rotting, ugly, dark. Falling in on
itself. They were going to tear it down. The fire was a blessing, in a way.
A big yard, filled with tall weedy grasses, dry and wild. A
tinderbox.
They didn’t even bother to wonder what started it—a kid’s
dropped cigarette, a spark from someone’s barbecue a few houses down. What did
it matter?
No one lived there anyway.
Abandoned for years, that’s what everyone said. Hadn’t seen
anyone come in or out for as long as they could remember.
So it was meant to be easy—they weren’t trying to save
anyone, weren’t trying to protect anything. Just spray it down, keep it from
spreading down the street. Contain it.
Contain the beast, the licking orange flames. That’s all.
Not vanquish, not defeat. Only contain.
They sent a few guys in once it wasn’t raging to see if
there was anything still needing to be dealt with—no missed spots, no chance of
a reignited fire.
And that’s when he saw her.
A child. Naked and tiny and screaming. He could barely hear her over the flames, the
sound of the house dying. But he saw her, and he ran towards her as fast as he
could.
There was no blanket near her, no clothes, no bottle,
nothing.
No clues to where she came from, or why she was here, in a
house that no one cared about anymore.
Naked and tiny and screaming. Eyes screwed shut with the effort of it.
A newborn, no more than a few hours old. So small and red and
very very alive. He picked her up, as
gently as if she were a fragile ornament that he might break.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. Her eyes were an
amber color he had never seen before, and they were beautiful. He looked back.
His heart skipped a beat. He suddenly felt painfully warm, and he reflexively
shook his fire-retardant coat, certain he was burning.
He remembered himself then, remembered that they were in a
building that was about to collapse. He wrapped the baby in his jacket, ran
outside, performed his job. And their miracle, their magic amber moment, it was
over.
The young fireman never
saw her again after that day, but he remembered those eyes, the look she gave
him the day she began.
