Christine

Today

The day was bright and sunny, the air dry and light.

The perfect day for honoring lost love.

Maybe after my visit this year, I’d finally find the strength to move on. Even as the thought teased, I suspected it might take another cataclysmic event to let go of the man I’d given my heart to in less than twenty four hours.

Summer is still a couple of weeks away, not that you would know, based on the warm temperature of the clean and brisk mountain air. A direct contrast to the heavy smog of L.A., where I’d first met him. I have no memories of the man in this place except for the ones he painted into my mind while we talked. Yet, Wyoming was where I felt his presence the most.

My red roan colt pranced beneath my seat, needing to run off his intense teenage energy. Dry dirt, kicked up by Cloud, muffled the sound of his hoof- falls solid, dull thuds, which he punctuated with occasional impatient snorts.

As we traveled, the dusty ground became harder, more firmed and flattened. Gray and white rocky outcroppings thrust upward amid a dry, tan landscape dotted by the washed out green of desert grasses. More of the same lay between us and the scrub pines along the swell of foothills in the distance.

I point Cloud toward those hills, finally allowing the exuberant colt to set his own pace. He catapults us across the plain, brawny muscles alternately flexing and contracting beneath me, racing at full gallop. The denim jacket I hadn’t bothered to fasten catches the wind and billows behind me. Chilly air works icy fingers along the exposed skin of my neck, bringing with it a wonderful ache.

We top a gentle rise and a sea of yellow and purple wildflowers surprise me. God’s own casually sown garden spread across the plains all around. The sky overhead is a deep blue and cloudless. With the prairie behind and the snow-covered peaks ahead, I pull Cloud up inside a cathedral of Ponderosa pines, close my eyes and inhale the pungent scent. It was exactly as he had described it which made it the perfect place to remember him.

Seven years had passed, yet the pain remained an exquisite fresh wound, probably owing to the fact that I revisit the memory every year on the anniversary of that unforgettable day. In the hills of Wyoming, that he had loved and missed so much, I picked the scab off the wound I never quite allowed to heal.

* * *

The job was all that mattered now. I made myself disregard the toppled shelves and scattered books. I blocked out all thoughts about the likely state of my own home. As I listened to the chatter on the official channels, I kept meticulous handwritten notes regarding the status of each unit checking in.

“Battalion 9- Alpha, this is Engine Squad 9- Bravo, do you copy?” The connection was filled with static and the voice was muffled, hard to hear.

I wait for the response of the battalion chief on scene.

None comes forth.

The callout is repeated once again, the voice even more urgent. “This is L.A. Engine Squad 9-Bravo, dispatched to the Convention Center---“Again static broke the transmission.

Following protocol, after the second unanswered call, I intervened. “Copy you, ES-9-Bravo. This is central dispatch. Your transmission is breaking up.”

I checked my watch and jotted the time in my notes: 0724 hours.

The response was drowned out by a loud burst of static in the earpiece.

“9-Bravo, be advised you are breaking up,” I repeated.

More harsh squawks of static burst from the receiver causing me to wince in pain. If that kept up. My head might explode – or at least an eardrum. Then, amid the static, I clearly heard the code every dispatcher dreaded. “9-Bravo is 10-60, this location. Code three, code three, code three… trapped…”

The code for firefighter down.

Static filled the airways again as I punched buttons on my console, frantically trying my best to help the signal.

“Dispatch, do you copy?” The voice is screaming, “Central! This is 9-Bravo we are in need of assist. The building’s coming down around us!”

Afraid to switch over to relay, with the risk of losing contact altogether, I motioned for Kate, the dispatcher sitting next to me. With lightning, fast strokes, I wrote on my notebook in bold black ink: UNIT IN TROUBLE.

At the next desk, Kate nods and switches channels to contact the Battalion 9 squad leader over the comm.

“9-Bravo, this is Central Dispatch,” I acknowledge. Stomach-wrenching fear threatening to leak into my voice, so I bite down on the inside my cheek ... hard. Dread shoots out little tentacles of hopelessness to curl around my lungs, squeezing the breath out of me. “I’m reading you, sending help your way. What’s your location?”

“Civic Center parking garage—A level. The building’s coming apart! We need extraction.” The voice was still urgent but the panic had faded.

I need to get my own terror under control and keep it that way, I remind myself, otherwise I wouldn’t be any help to anyone.

“Copy you 9-Bravo. Who am I speaking with?”

“Mick-“More static, then “Mic-key.”

I scribble everything I can make out into my handwritten notes. “Mickey, you’re breaking up badly. How many do you number? How long have you been trapped?”

“Two confirmed, dispatch,” He mumbles into the static filled mic, “possibly three.” The transmission cuts for a second and then “I can feel my partner, but he’s unconsious. I heard someone else down here earlier. I don’t know how long it’s been. I think I’ve been unconscious too – I’m pinned – can’t move. It’s dark – can’t see a thing.”

I pass off the information to Kate so she can convey it to the battalion chief.

With a pointed shake of the head, Kate catches my eye and hands me a message from the battalion chief. As I read, my heart flutters in my chest before moving upward to stick in my throat. My free hand rises of its own violation and covers my mouth, as if to prevent me from saying the words I was reading.

The Convention Center has collapsed with several men inside. Some of them are buried under four floors of rubble, while above them the fire from the gas main explosion burns fully evolved and uncontained. Rescue efforts will be delayed and prospects for extraction were grim. A chaplain was in route.

God help them all. How am I supposed to tell the man on the other end of the comm that he isn’t going to be rescued? What could I say to someone when my words were likely to be the last he’d ever hear?