The Dream Puzzle
2
Shift change occurred without fanfare leaving Mike, Marco and Johnny changing into their street clothes while the other half of "A" shift busied themselves with mundane chores. Roy left quickly as he had to drop off his dirty uniforms at the dry cleaners and Hank needed to tidy up the office before "B" shift had roll call. Chet, still somewhat unnerved wandered out on the front lawn of the station unsure of exactly what he thought he'd find there. Whatever it was, he didn't find it and walked around the side of the building, passing the kitchen door on his way to the back of the station. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. Nothing looked different. In fact, everything about Station 51 looked exactly as it had every other day. He stood momentarily staring at the hoses he'd helped hang up the previous day and let his eyes fall on each vehicle in the back parking lot. He recognized each one there. Johnny had already left and Mike was just backing out. He slipped his key into his VW van door and listened for the click as it unlocked. He hesitated before climbing behind the wheel. What if…nah. Even though he was beginning to feel paranoid, he couldn't help himself. He turned to make sure he was alone in his van before he cranked it up and backed out of the parking lot. Then with his right hand draped loosely over the steering wheel in the 12 o'clock position, he lifted his fingers in a half-hearted wave to Marco as he exited the rear door and headed to his own vehicle.
Marco threw his jacket over his right shoulder offering a friendly nod to the exiting Chet. He couldn't help but be worried about his eccentric crewmate. Chet had not been himself this morning. Marco made the right turn as he drove his car around the side of Station 51. Approaching East 223rd Street, he leaned forward looking in both directions before making the familiar right turn to head home. Once he was in the line of moving cars he leaned back in his seat and began replaying the events of the morning. Chet had seemed perfectly fine when they retired for the night so what could have possibly happened that had him so spooked. He'd mentioned something about a dream but the subject had been dropped after Johnny's smart aleck comment about a hot chick or something. Marco really hadn't thought anything else about it until he was standing in the kitchen a few minutes ago and noticed his buddy meandering past the kitchen door on his way to the back of the station. Why had Chet taken that route to get to his car this morning? And why was his comment about a bad dream echoing inside the walls of Marco's own hazy dream recall world.
Chet entered his apartment and headed straight back to his bedroom. What he needed was a long hot shower and some serious sack time. He walked into the bathroom pulling back the navy blue shower curtain and turning on the water. In a matter of seconds he had shed his clothing and stepped into the steaming hot shower. He closed his eyes as he allowed the hot water to wash away the anxiety he'd been feeling for nearly six hours. As he was rinsing the shampoo from his hair he scrubbed his face with the palms of his hands when images of the movie Psycho flashed through his mind's eye causing him to remain wide-eyed for the remainder of his fear-shortened shower. With a jerking movement he snatched the shower curtain back half expecting someone to be standing there with a knife poised above his head. However, all he saw was a cloud of steamy vapor trapped in his small bathroom.
"Damn it!" He voiced his frustrations with himself. Chet, you fight freakin' fires for a living and now you can't even take a shower without having a nervous breakdown. He dried himself off and wiped the condensation from his mirror. He was jumpy and he knew beyond a doubt that he would not be getting any sleep. He still had hopes of at least a short nap as he pulled on a t-shirt and his boxers and crawled into his bed; but an hour later he was still lying there staring at the ceiling and silently cursing himself and his predicament.
"Mornin' Chet, what's got you here so early?" Hank Stanley always arrived at the station by 0730 but rarely did any other member of his crew.
"I don't know, Cap, just bored I guess." Chet really didn't have a plausible explanation. He couldn't tell Cap that he was still feeling a little bit spooked and wanted to have time to walk around the station before the shift started; hoping to calm his nerves by proving to himself that nothing was out of the ordinary at Station 51.
Hank was concerned about his young linesmen. He noticed the dark circles beginning to appear underneath Chet's eyes and wondered what exactly was going on with him. Captain Stanley stood in the doorway of his office watching the forlorn looking fireman meander across the empty apparatus bay as he made his way to the dorm.
Several minutes later, Hank heard the sound of the bay door rising as the engine and squad returned from an early morning run. He had already made a pot of coffee knowing that the crew of "C" shift would appreciate it as the logbook indicated they'd been called out at 0427 to assist Station 110 on a structure fire that had obviously spread. They should be returning at any time but Hank knew they'd be exhausted and would need the caffeine to make their drive home a little safer.
As the men of "C" shift exited their vehicles with various moans and groans about being tired and sleepy, Marco and Mike exited the locker room dressed in their uniforms. As they walked behind the freshly parked engine and squad, Marco caught a glimpse of an orange streak flashing through the apparatus bay headed toward the locker room. Gage was running late again and nearly knocked Roy down as he hastily entered the locker room to change into his uniform. The sight of Gage's orange shirt sent Marco's mind reeling back in time to the dream he had the last night he had spent in the station. Strange, he hadn't even thought about it since the morning that shift had ended but now the color of Gage's shirt had resurrected his memory of that forgotten dream. Something in the dream was the same color as Gage's shirt. He couldn't remember exactly what it was but he was sure it wasn't a fire. It wasn't unusual for a firefighter to dream about fires and Marco had had his share of those nightmares. No, this was something much more unusual than a simple fire dream. He knew that a couple of pieces of his dream puzzle had just fit together; but there were still plenty of other pieces continuing to float around in his memory.