Fire Engine

Fire-engine Now that it is autumn going towards winter I often think about morbid things to avert this I think of what I liked as a child. The sound of the fire engine rushing through the town; ran after it and felt heroic. Often the fire was far away when I got there it was too late; the fire had been small rubbish burning in junkyard sot on a wall. Firemen, rolling up their hoses, they were called that, now they are firefighters to make it more inclusive, mind you, I have never seen a female among them, I knew there were women at the fire-house. I went there to have mother’s kitchen knives sharped; they deftly wrote on typewriters. I was going to be a fireman, they looked so tall and tough, spitting manly. Alas, a few years down the line, they grew smaller.