Hot damn.

drabble

To a fireman, Fire is a goddess, cruel and beautiful, supremely powerful, beckoning her acolytes into the battle that can never be won, only brought to a draw. She has a voice which can only be heard when you step into the living, burning heart that makes Hell a frail word. Those who have heard that voice and survived live only to search it out again.

She will ask your pain and your blood, force you to listen to the screams of your brothers and sisters as they fall before her. And when you heal--physically, for the mental scars are a lifetime's sacrifice to her--you pursue her again. For those who have faced the elemental heart of chaos, all other lives are dark.

Whoa. Powerful, all of them.

Very. I particularly like the imagery in Kristin's. I've semi-done connie's and would have written about it, but now it wouldn't work. Good thing I have all week to think about it.

Do you know an honest fireman, too, Sail?

Nope, don't know any firemen. But, I had to go through aircraft fire-fighting school to get my enlisted air warfare specialist wings. Spent a week playing fireman, puting out fires in rooms, mock hangar bays with burning aircraft, etc. I learned a lot about myself from the training.

Anybody else got the Springsteen earworm? I may end up writing "Romeo and Juliet/Samson and Delilah/"

For connie and the real firemen out there:

“Can I go last? Please, I can’t breathe. I can’t do it.”

Blind without my glasses, the instructor just a smudge through the OBA. How would I be able to navigate without my glasses?

My turn. I knew this path. The steps counted and turns memorized during the dry run. In the door, instantly blinded by the smoke. One, two, three…six more steps--ladder on the right. Something bumped into me. Another student. He was floundering, going the wrong way. I grabbed his hand and pulled him along. Up the stairs--right, twelve steps--door. We're out and I can breathe.

Hubby got to do the "the ship's burning and it's up to you to save it" training in the Coast Guard, then he was a wildlands fire fighter for several years, with metro fire work in the off season. It took a few years for him to get used to someone sleeping next to him who deserved to know what the nightmares were about. Fortunately he doesn't have those dreams anymore--or they don't wake me up if he does.

I can only imagine. I found five days of training in a controlled environment exhausting, but it wasn't really dangerous. By the end, it was almost hohum. Can't imagine what your hubby did even came close to hohum.