My eyes opened to nothing. At first, I thought I couldn’t see. Everything was white, everywhere. It surrounded me, cutting me off from whatever was around me. I existed within a color, alone and inhuman.
What am I?
That was the first thought. In that moment, I had no idea. I could not see my hands or my arms or my legs. I could not feel my face or my body. Instead, I seemed to float outside reality, more a thought than a real physical being.
Who am I?
That came when sound returned to my world. The silence around me simply ceased. In its place, horrid noise pressed in on me like the crushing hands of some awful giant. They pressed and squeezed, screams of pain and moans of the dying. The crash and crumble of concrete and the shriek of rending metal. Alarms, sharp and so loud, sounded all around me.
Next came the smell. It filled my mouth like thick liquid, like some bitter poison. Tinny and sweet with a hint of putridity, it came from everywhere all at once. Instinctively, for that was the only level of brain function I managed in those first few moments, I took air in through my mouth. The dust coated my throat and filled my lungs. I hacked and coughed, and with each shudder a splitting pain radiated out of my head like an iron spike had been driven through my temple.
Somehow, my hand moved. Although I cannot say I controlled the movement yet, it still rose out of the debris more from reflex than thought. The motion brought with it a fragment of reality. I move, I thought. Therefore, I must live.
My hand rose slowly. It hovered just outside the halo of my pain. Cringing, I pushed through that invisible barrier and felt a brittle crust. Dust and fragments of ceiling tiles and specks of pulverized cinder block coated my hair like fallen snow. I brushed at it, and the pain flared exponentially, forcing me to close my eyes. My hand remained still as I fought to keep myself conscious. It hurt so bad I felt waves of nausea. But I knew that if I lurched, the pain would be too much to take.
As that first tidal wave of agony lessened, I slipped my hand back down. One eye opened, and I looked at chalky-white fingers, the tips coated in the brightest red I have ever seen. It burned into my eyes and everything wavered. I blinked, and only then realized it was blood.
Those alarms would not stop. They surrounded me. In a way, the noise reminded me of insects in the late summer, with that same cadence but mind-splittingly loud. At the same time, they sounded like shrill fire alarms. Opening my other eye, I tried to focus my vision. At first, everything remained white. Slowly, though, I saw a shape. It looked like a protective mask, the glass cracked, and a large metal tank. A rubber line spread across the jagged floor, disappearing under a large mass of what I took to be asphalt or crumbled concrete.
My hand moved again, but this time it seemed like a conscious decision. I reached out, gently touching the smooth surface of the mask. When my hand came back, I noticed a streak of red on the glass. I remember staring at that, for how long I have no idea. And I remember wondering if the blood had been there before or if it came from my finger.
The alarm continued. I had to move. The sound tore at the nerve endings inside my head like a fire burning beneath my skull. I put my hand down, the first step in attempting to stand. The ground shifted under me. That’s when I realized there was no floor, only sprawling debris.
I struggled and the pain intensified. The more I tried to move, the darker my world seemed to get. As the fog-like dust settled, I realized that the only light came from a ways off. I couldn’t tell if it was sunlight or artificial. The air felt so heavy and smelled so bad that I assumed it was the latter, but it was all I had.
Eventually, I rose to my knees. I felt so dizzy. But I fought through that. I had to. For some reason, that part of the brain that has remained unchanged since humans first walked with two legs took over. It called the shots. It told me to move, to get out. Something awful had happened. Something big. There was alarm and devastation. I couldn’t even find a floor. Above that metallic smell, something new filled my nose. I didn’t place it right away, but I knew it meant danger. I believe, looking back, that it might have been the sulfur smell of natural gas. At the time, I just somehow knew nothing good could come of it.
When I got to my feet, the dizziness worsened. So did the nausea. I heaved, but nothing came out except a groan from the pain. I dropped to a knee, my hands cradling my head. I wanted to scream, but I knew that would be even worse. I needed to move.
Pushing through it all, I rose again. I took a step, stumbling in the rubble and falling. But this time I got up right away. I took another step, passing the mask and the tank. I stopped for a second, distracted by the fact that at least one of the alarm sounds came from that equipment.
I cannot and will not ever claim to understand the human brain. Nor will I ever really get what happened that day. Yet I have this one memory. It is so vivid and it happened as I looked down at the mask and tank just after passing them. A single word filled the void that had existed in my head a second before.
Firefighter.
I knew what that meant. Nothing else made any sense, but I understood. Someone had been wearing that mask. Someone had been trying to help people. Now, they were gone. I followed the rubber hose, even bending down to touch it. I traced it to the crack beside my feet. When I looked closer, I realized it was poured cement, a jagged hunk that had to be at least twenty feet long and twice that wide.
For some reason, I bent at the waist and slipped my bloodstained fingers under the crease where the hose disappeared. I grunted. To be honest I have no idea how hard I tried to lift that slab. Maybe not at all. Maybe with everything I had. It didn’t move, though. Nothing did. Except me.