Sorry for the Memories

'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe

Anna Nalick (my celebrity crush for July, that is, until La Coquette came out of hiding...)


I say the word so many damn times, that it loses its meaning, the face in my mind is of you, and I need you, but I left you behind. Don’t know why I did. These words have a rhythm, but wouldn’t you know, that I’d lose the cadence and somehow betray us, and where I wind up, my mind is on you, don’t know why that is.

I was like you as a child, I got left, too, but I left that behind, and I look in the mirror so many damn times, don’t know who I am. The words are like you.

I’m in a house that’s burning down. At North Bend I dragged a girl out of a burn tower, but this is real, and I look behind me. The guy who was supporting me is gone.

Words have color, and in a burning house, the colors are the memories of possession. Every house that burns loses photos of children posing in the past. When you start out as a firefighter, you remember old movies of heroes running in without a mask to save the day. But you don’t realize that in real life, we kill the heroes that live, and the heroes that walk in without a mask are fools.

For a man in reasonable shape, the SCBA only holds 15 minutes of air. The hose looks tiny. It’s only 1 ¾ inches, but pumps 150 gallons per minute. The room is on fire, but I know the real flames are in the attic. I tighten the nozzle and aim straight up. The stream pierces the dry wall, and the room explodes in sparks. I’m engulfed in burning insulation, and I’m by myself, burning up with all these memories. I expand to 30 degrees and arc over the top of the back wall, then tighten back down to 15 and attack the dragon. In a moment, all the flames are gone.

They reappear almost instantaneously. A burning room is not just memories but nylon. The carpet is sticky, like tar, and I look around, but he hasn’t come back yet, with a new tank. The emergency bell on my SCBA starts to ring. I have 2 minutes.

A family outside is depending on me to save their memories, and there’s nothing I can do. The house will soon become a surround and drown, and more ceiling falls on me. This time it’s heavy and wet, and it burns. The water pressure eases up, which means the pump operator doesn’t know the formula. He’s let the RPMs drop too low.

There’s no hope for this house now. Whenever I’m in a fire, I know that I’m privileged. I’m in a space that few are allowed to tread. I always, always wonder if I should try to grab something. To pick the one thing that will get this family through its week at a motel, or relative’s house, or shelter. In the insurance commercials, it’s always a teddy bear. But I’ve never seen a stuffed animal in a fire. I see bills, and refrigerator magnets, and odd house shoes.

I start to back out of the room, and the air is light. They teach you to keep your mask on when you run out of air. It’s better to suffocate on nothing than rip off the mask in hope for some oxygen. The air is never there. It’s always burning nylon and 200 degree memories.

Outside, the family is sitting in the back of a police cruiser to keep warm. On top of the engine, someone has opened up the 5 inch turret and is dumping a thousand gallons of water onto the roof of the house and screaming ‘Wooo!’. I want to climb up and tell him that the fireman who pulled Baby Jessica from the well committed suicide. That we kill all the heroes. But instead, the Lieutenant grabs me by my bunker gear and starts screaming at me. Something about being inside a burning house by myself.

P.S. - Please go here and vote for one of my favorite bloggers, Lessons from the Kissing Booth. Serious. Please. She is very cool and very wonderful and makes both the boys and girls heartsick and best of all she bought tequila for me. And I love her because of the tequila. And if you vote for her, you can pretty much name your price. I will do anything. ANYTHING.