Memories on Fire

She sits, balanced on a huge iron beam, high up in the sky. Her uniform is bright yellow, with a shiny hard hat perched on her unruly brown curls. With a glittering red fire extinguisher in one hand, and a razor-sharp axe for chopping away debris, she is ready for anything. There is a creak and a groan of straining metal, as the hydraulic platform rises up into the crisp morning air. She can see right over the park and across the houses. She finds her street, and manages to locate her own house- the one with the shiny red front door she helped Daddy paint. In the garden someone is hanging out washing, sheets, once white now a grubby over-washed grey, surrounded by Mummy’s multicoloured tea towels and Daddy’s raucous ties.

The smell of smoke brings her back to reality, dazzling orange and red flames dancing just out of her arc of vision.

“Burning building!” she cries happily, whilst surreptitiously holding up both hands to see which one makes an L shape, “go…right!”

The cradle swivels until she is directly beneath the colossal blaze. The fire is so bright it seems to have absorbed the suns incandescent rays, and it is now radiating them back into her eyes. Massive chunks of burning timber break away, and fall to the ground far, far beneath her. She can see little children playing below in the sandpit. They oughtn’t to be there. After all this is a dangerous place, small children shouldn’t be allowed. The wood is heading right for them. On a normal day they might be very badly hurt, they might even have to go to hospital, but today Fireman Callie is here to save them. She sprays the flaming timbers with her fire extinguisher as they pass, and with a whispering hiss they shrivel up into tiny fragments of ash, which float away on the breeze.

Now the children are out of danger she turns her attention to the real problem. The relatively small blaze has become a raging inferno in the few minutes she has had her back to it. She has never seen one so big, and she has seen a lot. The roaring crackling fills her ears, deafening her. She imagines the fire as a rampaging beast, straining to get out, twisting and turning its flickering orange body against the constraints of the building. Somebody might be trapped inside. In fact, she is almost certain she can see someone waving from a top floor window. It is up to her to save them!

She pulls out her fire extinguisher again, clasping the black plastic handle in her gloved hands. A couple of quick squirts with her brand new super-wonderful-fire-putter-outer and the flames die away to nothing in a thunderous cacophony of sound, leaving behind heaps of black ash.

She forgets about the person she saw completely, her mind is utterly focused on the rewards she will receive for this wonderfully daring rescue mission. No doubt the newspaper will want to interview her, but maybe they would give her a chocolate medal as well?

The platform slowly descends, bringing down a triumphant fire-fighter grinning from ear to ear, a heroine who saved the day…

A five-year-old child in her fathers reflective cycle jacket.

There is a frustrated sigh.

“Oh, Callie, what have you been doing? Look, you’re soaking wet. How many times? You are too young to climb those big trees. You’re going to hurt yourself. Have you been squirting bird’s nests again? Honestly, those poor birds. Take the jacket off…”

There is a commotion over the numerous knots and various zips.

“We’re going home, right now, I seriously don’t know what gets into your head sometimes…”