suf fer the scarring

HAILEY MARTIN | FRESHMAN, ENGLISH

in the house he goes, the hotter, the thicker, the air gets.

Through the smoke at the top of the stairs, the fireman sees him and his brothers running between their bedrooms, jumping over flames, passing through smoke, giggling with excitement at a new challenge. The noise pulls him back into reality: it’s not his giggling brothers, it’s cries for help from a child. He opens the doors of his brothers’ bedrooms, searching for the sound, as he walks down the hall. But when he reaches his old room, the door is open. And through it, he could hear the sound clearly. Weeping and choking on the air, the fireman heard a child in his room. On the door, he sees the name of who the room now belongs to: Zachary.

A boy in train pajamas sits on the bed, back to the door, looking out the window. His blanket is pulled up to his face and his knees pulled up to his chest. Zachary’s shoulders shook as he cried silently, hiding tears from a nonexistent crowd, and he wondered if Zachary’s father had told him the same thing his dad did: Real men don’t cry, leave that job to the women in the house. Was this room Zachary’s safe haven too? In words, in tears, in screams into pillows, into his room, the fireman had released the emotions repressed by his family. He knew he should help the boy. But he had cried enough tears and felt enough pain in this room. Could he take any more of it?

It didn’t matter how he felt. He had to save this boy. Could he live with himself if he didn’t?

“Zachary?” the fireman asked. Turning his head, Zachary looked at him fearfully.

“I’m here to help you,” he says, “to get you to safety,” extending a hand to the boy. Zachary stretches to be picked up and the fireman carries him out. But then, Zachary cries out.

“Go back, go back fireman! I need my blankie!”

“Zachary, it’s not safe, we have to go, now.”

Twisting from his arms, Zachary jumps down and runs into his bedroom.

“No, come back!” the fireman yells, reaching for him. Just as Zachary reaches for his blanket, the burned-through floor gives way and pulls him down.

Crashing, crying.

Falling into the flames below. He only wanted his blanket.

As the fireman saw this, the breath left his lungs. He stumbled down the stairs. Gasping for air. Screaming for help.