Linden Avenue

I don’t know which is worse, seeing it happen or remembering. I’ve wrestled that problem for years and have yet to find an answer. At least one that makes me feel better.

Doctors have tried everything under the sun. From hypnosis and regression to drugs and counseling, but nothing has ever put it to rest. It lives in my mind as though it has a life of its own.

I don’t usually talk about it. Especially to strangers. It’s too grievous. Too…heart-rending. When I do speak of it, I’m usually stopped before I finish. I can tell by the look in their eyes that what I’ve said has truly moved them, but they don’t want to hear anymore.

I suppose imagining me on that ladder with a child in my arms, the flames shooting out of the window and the fireman handing me another one is just too much to take. I know its a terrible imagine. I’ve seen it a million times. There’s rarely a day I don’t.

Yet I never to get to finish telling my story. I don’t get to tell them how the smoke smelled, how its acrid stench was so thick and hot I can still feel it burning my throat or that it was boiling out of that window so fast and furious that it blinded me as I started down the ladder.

My audience has never heard that. They’ve moved on, left me with only a half-told story.

I want them to know there was a glimmer of life in both the children when I reached the ground and that I alternated giving them mouth-to-mouth until more help arrived. But the chance has never come. It’s an endless cycle of the curious listeners turning a deft ear to the horror of that night.

If I could capture their attention long enough, I’d tell them that one child was grabbed by a paramedic and hustled through the night to the back of a waiting rescue squad. That the other was in my arms hanging limp and flaccid as I blew little puffs, little tiny puffs into his tiny little body. Or that when I reached the rescue squad still blowing those little puffs, this child I carried coughed and opened his eyes, reached for my face with the tiniest fingers I’ve ever seen.

Maybe if they heard that they’d understand why this memory can’t be dislodged from my mind. Maybe then they’d understand why nothing has worked for twenty-five years and why this tiny child haunts my dreams.

I can see him now as I’m writing this and I’m sorry, but I’m not going to stop. You need to hear the worst of it so you’ll understand why it can’t be stopped. No matter what anyone does.

I’m at the back of the rescue with him cradled in my arms, starring into the wonder of his beautiful brown eyes. They twinkle in the moonlight and for a moment there’s only him and me, like some kind of bond is being formed. I’m thinking he’s going to be okay as I hand him up to the paramedics as gentle as any loving father. His parents will be happy. But then he suddenly coughs.

I watch in horror as those beautiful brown eyes flicker and go dark. I’m holding his tiny fingers that linger on mine, and feel him slip away as his arm falls limp at his side. I hear myself scream No! I want him back so I can breath those tiny puffs again, but the firemen slam the door close and drive off in a hurry.

Yeah, he’s gone and I have his memory, but its not enough. I can’t stop thinking about him. He looked so precious and beautiful covered in soot and wearing his Batman Pajamas. So innocent. I only wish I could have given him one more puff. Just one. Maybe I could have saved him. Maybe.