2036: A Fire

Smoke was the first sign, as it seeped through a small crack between the first carpeted step and the door. It was thick smoke, black as night and terrible to breathe. The room it broke into was the kitchen, whose skylight and hanging incandescents made it wont to being light and cheerful. Beaming through the skylight, the sun cut a thick shaft of light down into the kitchen and rebounded off of the smooth marble countertops to brighten the cold fridge, black oven, marbled counters, and cedar cupboards. When the smoke entered the room through its narrow slit, the it stood up tall, rising to fill the room with its dark body. In the middle of the kitchen, leaning over the wooden island, were Sarah and Andrew; who having found an unusual moment in which their children were quiet and gone smiled brightly. Drawing closer their lips came together, unaware of the growing smoke which threatened their kitchen and their moment.

Sarah noticed it first. She was facing the basement door so that in between kisses she noticed hints, which became clouds of smoke behind her husband. It took several moments to register as smoke inside of her brain. At first she just stared, straight through Andrew’s closed eyes, pursed lips, and unshaven cheeks, as a strange substance-still not recognizable as smoke to her- floated towards the ceiling. By the time she realized it for what it was and her mind answered the inevitable question of its source, it completely haloed Andrews head; whose now quizzical expression looked stupid when backlit with smoke. She suspected that he was just getting ready to ask what was wrong when she shouted.

“Shit!”

“What?”

“Shit! Shit! Shit!”

“What? Oh! Shit! Shit! Shit!”

Together they rushed to the doorway. Andrew grabbed the knob and recoiled immediately. Shouting obscenities and clutching his hand, he rushed to the sink and ran cold water over the burn. Sarah ran from the kitchen, returning seconds later with a single boot around her right foot. It was a robust hiking boot, grabbed from the mudroom which attached to the entry hall adjacent to the kitchen. The boot was unlaced and made it difficult to walk, but she knew it was solid and heavy and thought it would be stronger than her shoulder or bare foot.

“Go check for the kids upstairs!” She shouted while furiously charging towards the smoking door. In the last possible instant, she raised her booted foot up and ungracefully kicked out at the door. The action was closer to aggressively falling over with a foot extended than a kick. Prostrate on the linoleum floor she shouted to her husband again, “go look for the kids, I’ve got this!”

Andrew leaped over Sarah, and sprinted into the adjacent entry hall. He turned to the left, and bounding up the wide staircase Andrew began to call out: “Paul! Katie! Where are you? Paul! Katie!” Flying from room to room, opening each door and poking his head in for an instant before moving to the next. The final door of the hallway was Katie’s, and he hoped with his entire being that she was behind it. Andrew entered Katie’s room with a flurry, barely opening the door before crashing through. Katie was sitting at her desk, focused intensely on her computer and isolated from the world by a large pair of headphones that engulfed her ears and leaked out chords and lyrics. Andrew rushed to her side and ripped the headphones off of her head with an urgency only producible by immense relief.

“What the fuck!” Katie shrieked, turning towards him with eyes full of torturous thoughts. She would have protested more, but he had already wrapped her tightly in his arms. He squeezed the breath out of her as he hugged her to his chest, then let her go and looked at her with teary eyes. Confused, Katie asked, “what’s going on?”

“There’s a fire. Do you know where your brother is?”

“Last I saw him he was in the basement watching a movie. Where’s the fire?”

“In the basement.”

Together they rushed out of the room and down the hall, skipping half a dozen stairs at a time as they descended into the entryway adjacent to the kitchen, before plunging into the hazy kitchen. Smoke had risen to the ceiling, filling the well of the skylight and bubbling out from there. The kitchen was a cloudy world, and it took several seconds for them to spot Sarah at the far end of the room rummaging through drawers.  She produced an oven mitt from the drawer, then spun around and ran to the basement door.

“Katie says Paul is down there,” Andrew told his wife.

“I’ll get him, you get Katie outside safely.”

Before Andrew could protest, or stop her, Sarah grabbed the doorknob and twisted. He stepped forward to grab his wife and tell her that he couldn’t let her do this, that she was the meaning in his life and he couldn’t lose her, that he wanted to go instead of her because then he could be happy knowing she was safe, and all of the other things that she could say to him; but as he stepped forward he was slapped in the face by a thick cloud of smoke. It dove into his mouth and nose violently, digging its way into his lungs. Millions of daggers hit his eyes as the smoke made contact with every molecule of exposed eyeball. Andrew could do nothing but stumble away, coughing for his life. The smarter Sarah had stepped back for the initial blast of smoke, then covering her mouth and nose and squinting her eyes in a desperate attempt to lessen the pain, she disappeared into the dark basement, her single boot thumping loudly as she went.

Katie guided her father as he coughed terribly. Leading him through the entry hall adjacent to the kitchen and out onto the front lawn. Their automatic sprinklers kept their grass a vibrant green all year round, and Katie watched her father fall onto the grass and quake with every hideous cough. But he was outside, he would be okay, and so her mind turned to her brother and mother, about which she could promise herself nothing. She rushed to the shallow well against the bottom of the house, where the only window that looked into the basement was located. Katie tried to look through it, but the glass had grown a film of smoke that glowed an awful orange, as the origins of the smoke danced behind it. The orange made her sick as it sheened the window, taunting her cruelly. No matter how hard she tried Katie could not peer into the darkness, could not see her brother or her mother, could not know their fates.

After one final and tremendously powerful fit of coughs Andrew had control again. He was outside of the house, in the middle of their wonderfully green lawn, and his head hurt. Dizziness swirled around his skull as he tried to walk towards Katie, who was crouching in front of the basement’s window. His body wanted to grab hold of Katie and fall backwards into the grass. His arms wanted to cling to her, his chin wanted to feel her soft hair against its own rough growth, and his eyes wanted to cry. But something besides his eyes saw the door, and something besides his brain told him what to do. It was the beat of his heart that drove him toward the door, ringing loudly in his ears with an imperative cadence. Step. Pause. Step. Pause. Step. Each labored step was full of dizziness and confliction. He did not need to look into the window to know the darkness that awaited. Still he stumbled on. Step. Pause. Step. Pause. Step. The front door was very close now. His head was growing clearer, and in it he could see a vision of Paul’s body, the frail frame of a six year old, crumpled in Sarah’s arms, both burnt to ashen figures of who they used to be. Behind them a man was approaching. It was himself that approached in his vision, his body similarly ruined by the fire, getting closer to Sarah and Paul with every step towards the door. Step. Pause. Step. Pause. Pause. Sarah was there in the doorway holding Paul in her arms. Pause. Not an ashen figure, but the real Sarah, her skin beaten by the fire, but not burnt. Pause. She emerged from the door and collided with him, and the three of them slammed against the lawn, and Andrew’s heart stopped its pause and beat again.

Katie helped them to their feet. Paul was coughing weakly, but coughing nonetheless. They surrounded him in an embrace, holding each other and watching Paul. Sarah gave Paul to Andrew’s arms so that she could hold Katie and kiss her on the forehead. Smiling they shared grateful gazes, then turned back to Paul who was stirring. His eyes opened up, two wonderful orbs of brown. In a low and meek voice he spoke.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Andrew said, “everyone is okay. We all got out of the house.”

“But the fire-”

“It’s okay,” Andrew repeated.

“Speaking of the fire and the house, don’t you think we should call the fire department?” Katie said.

“Yea, who has their phone on them?” Andrew asked.

Katie and Sarah pulled out their phones and set to work. Andrew set down Paul and pulled out his own phone. Half a minute went by in silence. Sarah was the first to speak.

“How about these guys? Tom’s Firestoppers? Has anyone heard of them? The reviews say they’re alright. Oh, never mind, they only do commercial building fires.”

“Oh,” Katie said excitedly, “I’ve got one, but eh, they require a non-refundable deposit just for an evaluation.”

“How much?” Sarah asked.

“Fifteen hundred. Then per minute rates plus expenses. The reviews are good though.”

“I don’t think we need something really high quality,” Andrew said.

“Didn’t your cousin just have a fire last October?” Sarah asked Andrew, who was pensively scrolling down his phone.

“Yea, and I’m looking into the one she used. But apparently you need to have a house inspection for pre-existing conditions that would exacerbate the fire, or might endanger the firefighters, so unless you’re already in their databases as meeting the criteria they won’t come.”

Andrew bit his lip angrily. Smoke was streaming from the front door. In the bay windows of the living room, fire was ravaging their furniture.

“What’s that one ad on TV all the time?” Katie said, then after a pause continued almost singing. “If you’ve got a fire problem, then we’re just the ones you need, call five three nine six eight something. Five three nine six eight what?”

“Five three nine six eight eight, two seven, three one!” Sarah sang while she typed the number in. In seconds she was talking on the phone. “Hello. Yes, we have a fire. Mmmhmmm. Yea that will be fine. I agree. Okay the address is twelve forty one Davis Street. My card number is six one nine, hold on a second. Honey,” she said turning to Andrew, “which account should we use?”

“Fuck! My bank files!” Andrew shouted and rushed for the door.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Sarah screamed while chasing after him.

The clerk of Trusty Firefighters, waited for three seconds before hitting a button on his desk to activate the firehouse’s comm speakers. “Scrap that, payment didn’t go through, but don’t start playing with yourselves yet, I’ve got someone on another line.” He hit the green button for the next line, closing all ties to Sarah, Andrew, Katie, Paul, and the house on twelve forty one Davis Street. Then he regurgitated to the latest potential customer. “Thank you for calling Trusty Firefighters, we appreciate your business and hope to serve you better than our competitors. A fire, okay, then you need to know that by hiring us our company is not burdened with any responsibility for damage to property or person incurred by the fire or as a result of our firefighting actions. If you understand this and agree then say: I agree. Okay we charge a flat rate of two thousand dollars per fire, I’ll need your card number and then our satisfaction-guaranteed firefighters will respond within minutes.”