I woke up two minutes before my alarm, which was set for 0500. I thought I heard rustling in my room from the bed next to me.
I walked into the kitchen to make coffee. It was dark in the living room and kitchen. I turned on the oven’s hood light and saw that the coffee was already made and some was missing. I felt the glass pot and it was hot, so I poured myself a cup, turned the light off, and went into the living room to sit in my recliner in the dark. It looked like a dark shape was sitting in the recliner next to me, not moving.
“Morning,” Captain Diaz whispered.
“Morning,” I whispered back.
“Isn’t this nice?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Good,” I said.
I was relieved it was Captain Diaz. It had only been an hour since our last call, and as soon as my head hit the pillow I was in a bad dream. I dreamt Captain Diaz and I were driving in the engine. Maybe New Guy was in the back seat, but he never showed himself and I didn’t bother to turn around to see if he was there. We were driving next to a slow-moving creek, and a women in her thirties flagged us down and got up on the sideboard, so I rolled down the window. She pointed to the water and said she couldn’t find her daughter—she was swimming, then disappeared. Cap called her a weirdo and told her to get off the engine. She screamed at me while we drove off. Don’t worry, Cap said. We will come back. Cap got on his phone and played the song “Crazy Bitch” by Buckcherry. Inappropriate, I thought, even in my dream. He told me we had to go to the next town to turn around. I had never heard of the place he named. And while we were there, he said, he could run an errand or two before returning to look for the daughter. I went along with it. It all made perfect sense.
When we got back to the creek, the woman was sitting on the shore with her head in hands, crying. I could see the small girl submerged in the clear water only a few feet in front of her. I dove in with all of my clothes on, grabbed the girl, and carried her onto the shore. The woman screamed at me while I turned the small body on its side and water poured out of her mouth. She started to cough and sat up. The woman grabbed the girl and started to walk down the road. I took my phone out of my pocket to call my wife to tell her about it, but it wasn’t working. Somehow I was back home in my driveway and excited to tell my wife and son about saving the girl. I had never saved someone before. Usually everyone died during CPR. When I opened the door there were a lot of people in the house all sitting down in chairs. No one looked up at me. I started telling a few of them what had happened and they didn’t raise their heads to look at me.
I woke up to the sound of someone rolling over in the other bed in my room. I lay there quiet for a few moments to figure out where I was. I realized that I was at the station and that no one should be in the other bed. I turned on the light; no one was there.
“I dreamt we were on a call,” I said.
“Oh, how fun.” Cap took a sip. “Cannot even escape work in your dreams. What a nightmare.”
I didn’t want to tell him that it was a nightmare. I took a sip of coffee.
“What’s wrong?” Cap asked.
I wasn’t sure why he was asking me, because he couldn’t see me and I didn’t make a sound or say a word.
“I didn’t say anything,” I said.
“Oh, I thought I heard you say something.”
“This coffee tastes weird,” I said.
“It’s tea.”
“You made tea in our coffee pot?”
“It’s better for you,” Cap said. “You are welcome.”
I didn’t like the fact Cap had woken up before me and made coffee, let alone made tea instead. I never liked it when a captain did any job I felt was a firefighter’s responsibility. I thought it made us look bad. And making coffee was definitely one of those jobs. I took out my phone and set an alarm for 0430 the next morning.
I checked my messages and didn’t have any, so I started to compose one:
I miss you and Jake so much. Do you think you’ll be home when I get there on Sunday? Or where are we having his birthday party? I’m good with wherever. I can drive to the bay when I get off and meet you there if that’s easier. Either way is fine, just let me know. I will be there.
I deleted the message, then looked up CPR-for-dogs tutorials. It is much more difficult than with humans, due to how many different breeds and sizes of dogs there are. I mostly looked them up so I could save my own dog if anything happened to it. But I worried about other people’s dogs, too. Even strays, no one’s dogs. Because my wife and son hadn’t been home in two weeks, my dog was waiting for me.
“Cap, can we stop by my place and check on my dog at some point today?” I asked quietly.
“Depends where it is,” Cap said softly and slowly, like he had our day already planned out and wasn’t sure if he could fit it in.
“Here, in Paradise.”
“Which side of Paradise?”
“The west side. On Valley View Drive.”
“Oh, the nice side.”
“It’s not bad,” I said. It wasn’t that great either. We lived in an early 1900s hunting cabin that was a little over eight hundred square feet and renovated in what looked like the early Seventies. It was the nice side of Paradise, just wasn’t the nicest place on that side.
“Sure,” Cap said.
I went back to dog CPR tutorials on my phone and focused on small breeds. Any time I would see someone walking a dog or a dog by itself when I was on a call, I would quiz myself and think about what I would have to do to save it. I did the same for humans, but they were easy. For people, I only focused on toddlers and babies. And what I would need to do if I had to do CPR on one again. If I was somehow the only firefighter there. Or if there were two of us. I did CPR on an old person at least once a shift. I had only had my hands haunted with that small body once or twice. When do you put the child down? When do you give up and call it quits? Even though the baby was gone, I didn’t stop until the nurse at the hospital took her from my hands. My fingers are still pressing down on that little chest. Pushing that tiny heart.
I went into the kitchen to pour out my tea and make coffee.
Ibe Liebenberg, a firefighter and poet, is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation living in Paradise, California.. His debut poetry book, Birds at Night, won the Sowell Emerging Writers Prize and is due out in March 2025.
