A Total Monster, Part I

Ed was born forty-two years back, and even since the age of ten he’d looked with enrapt eyes upon the heroics of firemen. He wanted to join their number, to rescue folks when in danger, he’d go to their open houses, to the crew he was no stranger. But Ed knew he needed options, that life was unpredictable, so instead he went to college, to be educated in full. He did the normal college thing, and had himself a bit of fun, partied and drank like most kids do, but he was far from the worse one. He got a degree, his back-up, and then when out to the real world, it wasn’t long before he had found himself a job and a girl. As he hoped a fire company hired him on to fight the flames, started at the bottom of course, worked hard to build up a good name, and made his way up through the ranks, having a family as he went, not always an easy balance, but he kept on and went where sent. Yes, Ed worked multiple fires, and rescued people several times, the kind of greatness we all need but rarely ponder in our minds. Then in Ed’s forty-second year a small learjet struck a hotel, jet fuel started an inferno, countless souls trapped in living hell. The lower floors were all ablaze, hundreds of folks still were upstairs, Ed went to the roof on ladders, and found countless people up there. With the low floors now afire they had no real way to escape, and they could not use the ladders, not enough time given the blaze. He ordered the ladders detached, and with help, pulled it all up high they stretched them across the alley, to a building that was nearby. All the people began crawling, moved by panic to the other side, Ed was the last to go over minutes before burning alive. And then Ed was a great hero, his image plastered on the news, the man who had saved two hundred, even came to Hollywood’s view since two of the people he saved were actors on a cable show, he’d also saved the mayor’s brother, was so praised that he nearly glowed. He got medals and great discounts from all of the stores in his town, a folk song wrote on the internet went viral and circled around. For a month or so Ed just blushed, he found it all overwhelming, but there are some who don’t like heroes, and soon enough they did their thing. An old girlfriend saw a payday and put on the social networks that Ed wasn’t a real hero, in fact he was really a jerk. See one day after they’d broke up she saw the man at a party this happened way back in college, when Ed had been only twenty. CONTINUES IN PART II.