Everyday Canvas

Fire

Prompt: The blast of the alarm jolted me from my sleep. .I rubbed my eyes, trying to decipher what type of an emergency it was this time....

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The blast of the alarm jolted me from my sleep. I rubbed my eyes, trying to decipher what type of emergency it was this time, at this late hour. Although I was still disoriented and bleary-eyed, I felt this wasn't a common occurrence.

Quickly, I arose from my bed and stumbled to the window. Our usually quiet street was now filled with panicked voices and hurrying people. Still groggy, I thought of the worst scenario. Was it an earthquake, a terrorist attack, or something even worse?

I threw on some clothes and left the house, then joined the frantic crowd while trying to find out what the trouble was. Each person told a different story, but with one thing in common: the impending catastrophe of a burning apartment building. Sure enough, two streets down, I smelled smoke and later saw the wild flames engulfing a building.

On the location of the scene, the police struggled to maintain order as emergency vehicles sped past, their sirens blaring and flashing lights casting eerie glows on us.

When the fire worsened, the magnitude of the situation became clearer with firefighters battling the flames with their hoses by shooting torrents of water at them.

Suddenly, a piercing cry made me look up at the figure clinging to a ledge on one of the upper floors. I saw a firefighter go up on a truck's ladder toward the victim. When on top, he grasped the outstretched arm of the trapped person and held on to him, and inch by inch, they moved down the ladder together while I held my breath. When they reached the ground, a cacoophony of cheers arose from the crowd.

Eventually, the flames were put out and the fire died down, thanks to the tireless efforts of the firefighters. This incident made me realize how important firefighters are to our society and how little and rarely we think of them during our busy everyday lives.

At that time, down below, we had watched this one brave firefighter save a life, for as a crowd together with the firefighters and the police, we had become more than strangers connected by circumstance. We had become one united symbol of humanity.