All I Ever Wanted to be Was A Fireman (standard:Psychological fiction, 1239 words)
Author: Spotlight	Added: Feb 06 2004	Views/Reads: 3777/2304	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Disillusioned and Obsessed. Fire and Death. A short short about repressed feelings. A witty drama, Mike calls it. Dark humor.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

“I want you to know that firemen can sometimes love firemen too.  And
I'll never hate you if you choose that way.” 

I wanted to be a fireman and firemen had little hoses and big hoses and
some yelled at their wives and managed businesses in Columbus, Ohio for 
days.  My dad was a fireman at night. 

I practiced not sleeping sometimes like firemen do.  Sheila and me
watched dad's video together, but the firemen looked angry, so when Dad 
left Mom with another man named Todd, I looked angry too, because I 
wanted to impress other firemen.  I left Sheila and studied hard at 
college to be a business manager.  Firemen don't need friends. 

Mom said, “Smile for me, baby.” 

“I want to be a fireman and firemen are angry-looking.” 

Mom said she was a lonely firewoman now and needed a fireman.  I said,
“I wish I was a fireman.  I am almost a fireman.” 

Mom made me smile and I stopped going to school.  A fireman is strong
and I drove a gray Sedan to the local Fire Hall.  I always wanted to be 
a fireman and I volunteered today and the firemen smiled and issued me 
a hat, red, heavy as a brick.  I looked angry. 

I said, “I always wanted to be a fireman, and now I am.” 

The fireman laughed and said, “We're always looking for new, strong men
around here. Don't worry, we'll show you the ropes real quick.”  I 
learned how to work the hose.  I strapped on a fireman's suit and boots 
and stomped around.  I laughed. 

At two o' clock, Todd called and dad was badly burnt and hurt in a car
crash, and Todd was crying.  They were trying to pull him out of the 
smoldering car; the phone was crinkling with static and I swung the 
axe.  The car skidded into the guard rails and fell from the bridge, 
rolling like a fireball into a empty ravine.  Sheila's house was on 
fire across town. 

Sheila was dead and I visited her and cried, but not for her.  I wanted
to be a good fireman and live in a fireproof house, but I did not love 
her.  When I was scared to be a fireman, Sheila said, “Firemen are 
dangerous.  Firemen are dirty.”  I was clean.  I was pudgy and short. 

I am a fireman. 

Mom says she is taking a nap upstairs and I say I'm scared, but soft so
I can't hear myself speak.  I am lighting the stove.  Mom is naked and 
in my room the toy box is empty, the new fire truck thrown away.  The 
flame is blue then red when it travels across the kitchen floor and it 
melts my shoes to the ground.  I am a fireman, confused and scared and 
burning and ugly and weak and I am a fireman.  I always wanted to be a 
fireman. 

Firemen are made of fire.  Firemen cry and don't cry and love and leave.
 Firemen feel their skin boil and rot from their kneecaps.  Firemen 
watch their pupils fill with smoke and smell the stench of sulfur in 
their nose and feel a white, two-story house with a curving paved 
driveway, dead rose bushes and holly bushes hedging in the front 
concrete walkway, a two-car garage, a wide neighborhood dotted with 
street lamps and young Maples, between two identical houses screaming 
with nervous neighbors frantically calling 911, three bedrooms, a 
lime-avacado textured bathroom and a brown-stained, off-white upstairs 
bathroom, a cluttered mess of college boxes in the living room 
gathering dust, and a depressed pile of laundry taller then the dryer 
under the gritty basement shoot, and feel that two-story house crash 
and creak and tumble down above their head. 

I will always be a fireman. 

Spotlight 2003  --Comments?  Hate-mail?  Critiques?--


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