“Well, tell me more about why you want this promotion. Do you have a girlfriend nagging you to go for it?” the Captain probes.
“No. I want the promotion to have more of an opportunity to serve my community and make myself proud when I look in the mirror,” I recite.
I tell myself this regularly, so the words flow without much thought.
“You will find a girl rather quickly with a mentality like that,” the Captain notices.
“I get girls, but I still struggle to find the one I want to settle down with,” I admit.
“If I didn’t hear about some of your philandering ways, I might set you up with Emma,” the Captain jests, taking a sip of his beer.
My ears perk up, but I don’t want to show my interest too clearly. To avoid the Captain from seeing my facial expression, I take a sip from my beer.
“Well, I appreciate your guidance and the beer. I hope to have good news for you at the end of all this. Unfortunately, I need to get to the fire station,” I say, getting up from my seat.
“You do good work and always make sure to have your wits about you. That natural instinct will stand out. Trust yourself. I wish you all the luck in the world,” the Captain tells me.
I barely have my protective gear on when the alarm rings at the fire station.
“Let’s go! Residential fire on Elm St.!” a colleague screams.
I slide down the pole and hop in the firetruck, finishing putting my boots on in the firetruck.
When we arrive on scene, people litter the sidewalks, satisfying their morbid curiosity shamelessly instead of getting out of the way for us to put out the fire.
I take the lead of the hose with several brothers with me.
“Anyone inside?” I ask anyone who can answer.
“They think one adult is still in the building,” another firefighter tells me.
As I hear his response, I see other firefighters place a trampoline underneath a window. An adult woman appears in the window with singed clothes, carrying a kitten.
“I can’t jump!” she screams.
“You need to jump!” a firefighter tells her.
“I can’t!” she protests.
Suddenly, a swarm of fire appears behind her, and she gracelessly tumbles down on top of the trampoline.
“That was close,” I mutter to myself.
It doesn’t matter how many burned bodies you see on the job. You never want to smell another one. I find relief in the fact she got out safely.
We enter the building and put out the fire at the source rather quickly. The whole thing seems rather routine. Too routine.
After we eliminate the danger, I go to talk to the woman who jumped out the window. She looks startled and attempts to fix her hair without a mirror when I approach her.
“Hi, ma’am. I had a couple of questions. Do you know what caused the fire?” I ask her.
“Rumor has it we have an arsonist in town,” she replies, sticking out her chest.
“Unfortunately, I can’t go on with the rumor,” I tell her.
“Well, except for this scarf, I don’t know much. However, we can talk about it over dinner,” she suggests.
I look at the scarf she mentioned, and it looks like the one Emma had. I try to dismiss the connection, but I find myself a little suspicious.