Cherry - S01 E56

Story 1 year ago

Cherry - S01 E56

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 56

I had a dream that I was watching TV when I suddenly felt a familiar presence. I looked over at the couch and Katie was watching TV with me. She still wore her blinding-white dress, but she looked nervous for some reason.

I said, "Hello, Katie. I haven't seen you in a while. How are you?"

Katie said, "Hi. I'm ok, I guess. But I'm scared about something."

I asked, "Why? What's the matter?" She looked at me and said, "I'm going to be on TV tomorrow and I'm scared you won't see me. You have to see me!"

I tried to calm her and said, "I'll watch as much as I can, but I have to work. Do you know what channel should watch or when?"

Katie seemed confused and unsure how to answer before saying, "I think there's only one channel to watch. I guess it's an old TV because it's small and there's no color. But you have to watch it!

Promise me you'll watch?" I said, "You mean I have to watch one TV in particular?"

Katie just nodded her head.

I asked, "Do you know where this TV is? don't know of any black and white TV's that only get one channel."

Katie said, "It's at the fire station.... I have to go now."

I said, "But we don't have any TV's like that at the station house." She repeated, "I have to go..." and she was gone,

I woke up and found the dream so strange yet seemingly Important that I made a note about it before going back to sleep.

The next day Cherry called Olivia from work to tell her our decision.

Olivia was really excited and said that they would start getting some necessary paper work together and we'd schedule a session at a later date-once everything was in order. I had no idea what paper work they had in mind (seemed like such a simple thing to me) but I didn't argue the point. It was their 'show', after all.

It was just after noon when we got called out to assist another station house with a structural fire. The structure turned out to be a higher end apartment complex. I never liked apartment fires for several reasons. For one, it was 'close to home' since lived in an apartment. Also, because of so many different types of people living there, neighbors frequently knew nothing about each other; preferring to keep to themselves. Subsequently, you couldn't rely on them to know who was home and who was not. That meant door to door searches for smoke inhalation victims-human and pets. Some pets were friendly; others-not so much. Another reason I disliked them was management. Managers were frequently uninformed or, worse, misinformed about important. details like 'is the power secured? or 'is the gas main turned off?' or 'what is the construction of the building?

We rolled to a stop and got to work. The primary team was on scene before we got there and had command. They were working on clearing the apartments and laying out hoses to combat the fire. The fire was isolated to the kitchen in one apartment on the top floor, so it looked like we would have it under control pretty quickly.

The manager (as per usual) couldn't say for sure what the construction of the building was he was new. But he said for certain the power was off and they were working on the gas main. "Super...

I grabbed a device known as a fire finder and only then did I remember my dream from the night before. A fire finder would seem sort of like a black and white TV to a kid Katie's age. In actuality, it's a thermal camera that displays a black and white Image on a small video screen. It can see through the thickest, blinding smoke with ease and clarity by sensing differences in temperature. Not only is it great for finding where the flames are, but it's perfect for finding passed out victims!

We were told to assist in clearing the top floor and once clear, to 'put the wet stuff on the hot stuff. But we had to wait to get the word about the gas main being secured first before entering the space to combat the fire. We could hear the roof man cutting the hole through the roof to give the fire a path to draw oxygen (which is how you avoid a face full of flames when you open the door to enter the apartment also known as a back draft). The word on securing the gas main seemed to take forever, but when we got it, we entered the apartment to start doing what we do best.

From the hole in the roof and the now blown out windows, the apartment was clear enough that the fire finder was not needed and I let it hang from the wrist strap.