Chapter 4
Beep...beep...beep...
Traveler reached for the alarm clock and blindly fumbled around with it. Refusing to cooperate, the alarm clock then skidded across the nightstand falling off the other side. Traveler sighed.
Beep...beep...beep...
Traveler reached down again and pulled all the plugs out of the outlet, thinking that would be the end of the noise.
Beep...beep...beep...
Now that Traveler was fully aware the noise was not coming from the alarm clock, he opened his eyes and saw the menacing smoke filled the room. He could hardly see his hands in front of his face; he had no idea where the fire was coming from. “Jake get up!” He yelled. He waited and when there was no reply, his head spun nervously. In his frightened state, he pictured several of different worst-case scenarios. One of which was Jake leaving the room just to save himself. Thus, he took matters into his own hands. He remembered a passage from “Dangerous Situations, Possible Solutions” about the dangerous nature of fires and knew he did not have much time. He slid to the floor avoiding the smoke as best he could and crawled over to Jake’s bed. The looming smoke made it difficult to navigate, but he did not have to go far. He reached to the top of the bed and moved his hand side to side, up and down, and attempted to search for any signs of a warm body. After just feeling bedsheets and blankets, he realized Jake was missing. Now he needed to enforce rule number one of the book– “Do not panic.”
Starting to realize that he was the only person in the room, Traveler’s next choice was to get the heck out. He crawled towards the front door, but the chaotic heat pushed him back. He did not know what else to do. The smoke swarmed around his body causing his eyes to squint and tears to run down his cheeks. The violating smoke made him cough uncontrollably. Amidst all the danger he was in, he visualized what a smoker’s lungs had to go through. He imagined the smoke wrapping itself around the lungs, as a large python would do, constricting the lung’s air supply into a silent submission. He realized that his imagination was beginning to turn into a reality. The oxygen faded as Traveler started to display signs of passing out. Unexpectedly, a rolling wave of black smoke came his way. The remaining smoke was still thick and Traveler’s vision was still blurred, but he noticed a figure emerging from the dark clouds. Before he could get a chance to recognize who it was, he collapsed to the floor.
♦ ♦ ♦
After Traveler went to bed, Jake tried to go back to sleep, but that was easier said than done. He tossed and turned, smacked the pillow a couple of times, and tried covering his eyes, but he was in an unfamiliar spot. He tried confusing his mind with different sleeping tricks like skeet sheeping, but that did not work.
He politically tried to bargain with his mind persuading it to stop thinking, but that did not work. Diplomatic qualities were not a part of his list of strong attributes. There was no reasoning with it; his mind was on an one-person mission to avenge itself against the individual who interrupted its REM sleep.
He tried to mold his mind for the theatrical debut of the play “The Revengeful Act – an one-person portrayal of a mind on a mission,” but his stomach decided to have a sudden case of stage fright; ruining his plans and for that reason, the intermission had the untraditional start.
Jake had never been up this late before; he knew the importance of sleep and understood its healing properties. He trained himself to develop a sleeping pattern that would repair his body and mind, thus kept him injury free for the previous three seasons. Consequently, with his body awake at a time where he should be sleeping, a devastating outcome cropped up from the miscommunication.
One example would be his need for nourishment. His stomach constantly bellowed at him, believing it was time for breakfast. Suddenly, his survival sense kicked in, giving him a vivid image of a bunch of vending machines downstairs near the lobby. As he made his way to the lobby area, he passed by the laundry room and caught the sight of a cute blonde girl folding her clothes. He decided to ditch his hunger needs. Of course, the blonde hair girl could not resist his charismatic charm.
♦ ♦ ♦
It was a good thing that Major Sands was a light sleeper. When he heard the blaring beeping that came from the other room, he popped opened his eyes with a slight head flinch. His curious eyes would not let him go back to sleep. He carefully removed himself from the bed, making sure not to disturb Mary’s slumber. The noise led him outside.
When Major Sands opened the door to investigate the disruptive sounds, he realized what was in-store. Major Sands saw a blazing inferno gorging up the door. He watched as the rioting flames engulfed the wood leaving a path of destruction behind it. The fire struggled to stay alive as it played leapfrog, along the stationary wood frame. The orange yellowish flames waved fluidly through the air as it tried to lasso a fresh piece of wood or any flammable material nearby. This provoked a sudden vasoconstriction in Major Sands’ body, which caused his heart rate to increase, his pupils to dilate, which in turn, activated his body’s fight response.
The fire tried to understand the concept of conformity, but the sizzling trails and the intense radiance, in the dead of night, hardly goes unnoticed from a distance. The naive fire did not know that it was risking someone’s life nor did it care; like most things, all that mattered was staying alive. However, Major Sands could not stand by and watch the blazing flames take its next victim. The surge of hormones secreted by the adrenal glands revealed a hero’s complex lodged at the back of his brain. He ran and grabbed a fire extinguisher, and then with a few passes of the carbon dioxide gas, he blew out the flames on the door.
Once the suffocating gas subdued the fiery leech, the elevation of his adrenaline caused him to bully down the door, and with one strong SWAT kick, the momentum rallied his entrance. He stood at the entrance for a moment and saw a circus of intense decoration surrounding the walls. With the smoldering door beneath him, he fixated at the disorder in the front. The searching possibilities were endless, the danger was limitless, but he knew the stakes and leaped to the chance of saving his sons.
Major Sands shielded his face to avoid smoke, but what he was trying to do was buy more time to figure out his next move. Mental blocks were never that common with him. He was always aware of his surroundings and with that, when any spontaneous problems arose, a solution came afterwards. Just like a chess player’s mind, he was always two or three steps ahead of the game. Yet, this was different; with the lives of his sons at stake, his emotions and judgment were set on the same frequency, blocking the quick response time. Although the emergency resolution was slow, he thought of using his hands trying to fan the smoke away giving him a chance to increase the visibility. However, the dissipated smoke remerged as if the dark clouds were imitating an airy version of quicksand. Even though the smoke was able to conceal his vision, it could not deafen the sounds of the room. This gave him a chance to level the playing field. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his other senses. He tried to listen for any signs of his sons’ voices. He concentrated hard, but the next thing he heard was the crackling of the ceiling behind him. He knew his moments were far and few from in-between. He finally was able to hear a faint cough and cautiously walked towards it. However, when the ceiling crumbled behind him, the fiery hailstorm of stucco caused him to speed forward. He opened his eyes for just a split second and through the meshed smoke screen, he noticed a little sparkling rhinestone, leading his feet ahead of him. As he got closer, the smoke dispersed and he recognized Traveler’s colorful pajamas from a couple of hours ago. He was glad the wizard pajama was on sale last weekend because the rhinestone at the end of the wizard’s wand guided him to Traveler’s lifeless body.
♦ ♦ ♦
Major Sands lifted the limped body and hurried him out. However, there was a spark of uneasiness in his eyes as he carried his son to safety. When he placed Traveler down, Jake was nowhere in sight. He had a choice to make: attending to Traveler’s medical needs or go back inside and look for Jake. He was just about to make his decision as Jake came running down the hallway. Major Sands’ relief level just came back down to a four. What he wanted now was to get it down to a zero; for that, Traveler needed to wake up. As Jake hovered over Traveler’s body, huffing and puffing, he had a slight look of concern. Jake saw the fire from the laundry room and came sprinting over. It was the first time he showed any compassion for his little brother.
“Is Traveler okay?” Jake said while trying to catch his breath.
Major Sands did not know how to answer. He watched his son lay on the concrete pavement hoping for any movement. A bobbing chest, twitching legs, blinking eyes, or any shifting would have been great, but the stubborn body refused to cooperate. The sight of blue coloring on Traveler’s lips gave Major Sands more than enough reasons to force his hands into action. His emergency medical training was minimal, but effective enough. He positioned Traveler’s body for the first stages of CPR. He leaned in grasping the nose with his right, lifting the chin with his left, and with one deep breathe, he angled in aiming for the mouth. However, at the point of contact, he refused to resuscitate. That was because the sprinkling cough followed by a stream of black smoke gave Major Sands his cue to impede his heroic act. Major Sands was relieved when Traveler’s skin color and consciousness return to that state of originality.
Mary, up from her sleep, surveyed the scene. Even with the blaring beeps, she did not wake up; she was a heavy sleeper, but the commotion was too much for her to ignore. When Mary saw Traveler in the arms of Eric, covered with black ash, she realized what she had slept through. She dashed out, giving Jake a quick hug, and moved her attention to Traveler. She carefully peeled Traveler away and gave him a long, big hug.
“Oh, my baby boy, don’t worry, mommy’s here.” Traveler squirmed a little, but he could not get away for her motherly instincts.
The smoke made Traveler a little light-headed and disoriented. He wanted to speak, but he had difficulty. As Mary wiped away the ashes from his cheeks, she noticed his need to voice himself.
“What is it Traveler? What did you want to say?” Traveler looked up to both his parents “Mom, Dad- I don’t think I want to start smoking.”
Everyone laughed.
After a couple of minutes, they heard a familiar wailing from a distance. As the emergency vehicles rushed in to surround the building, EMTs hopped out and charged into the scene. Traveler did not know if it was the lack of oxygen, but it seemed like the emergency team were moving in slow motion, as they do in the movies. As they ran towards the stairs, Traveler waited for the heroic background music to surface and defined the dramatic moment. He hoped that a director would come out of the bushes and yell, “CUT! That’s a wrap.” He did not want to think this was real; he did not want to believe that he almost had a brush with death; he wanted to be back in his bed dreaming the entire ordeal. However, the music never came, the director did not say “CUT,” and this event truly happen.
The emitting colorful lights from the vehicles, acting like a bug zapper luring people away from their rooms. They came and watched in great numbers with attentive amusement, as most people do, when the EMTs treated Traveler and Major Sands with an oxygen mask. One of the spectators happened to be a doctor and because of his inquisitive nature, he was ethically binding to the situation. Therefore, he offered his services and examined the two of them. He determined their status was nonthreatening and deemed an overnight hospital stays was unnecessary.
The fire inspector managed to weed himself through the crowded area and entered the blistered room. He stood in the middle of the newly decorated room; as if an interior designer decided to go with the Cajun Art Nouveau look, which originated in Chicago around 1871.
As he positioned himself in the focal point of the room, he hoped to find anything that seemed out of place. He smelled the unnatural accelerate in the air, he noticed the half-burnt match near the doorframe, and saw the nearest electrical outlet was in the other side of the room. He did what he was trained to do, but any rookie could have came in there and figured it out. He walked out of the room disappointed at the challenge he just undertook and informed Major Sands of his preliminary findings.
The night overcame with happiness by its lengthy engagement; that was partly because on this particular night it was quite popular. The night decided to hold on to its last performance with the family standing and staring at the empty ravished room. Each of them had their own things that played out in their minds. Jake wanted to know if the blonde hair girl was still there. Traveler worried that he was going to have long-term damage to his lungs. Mrs. Sands wondered if all of them could fit into her room. Major Sands hoped that he did not have to pay for that burned room. Sometimes great minds did not think alike.
They stood and had a merry-go-round of thoughts swimming throughout their head; the motel manager came by and offered his assistance. He gave them the best room at the motel, on the house. It was not a villa at a fancy hotel, but it was good enough for the rest of the night. They tried their best to get a good night rest, closing the curtain on the night’s performance with an exhausting, but happy conclusion.
The next morning they got back on the road and headed home. The silence was deafening because nobody said a word. Mary, sitting close to Traveler in the backseat, could not resist giving him several engulfing hugs after a couple of minutes.
“Mom, stop I am okay,” Traveler said while pushing her away.
“Okay sweetie, I’ll stop. But you need to promise me to stay out of harm’s way.”
“Okay, Okay, Okay, I promise.”
Traveler wished everybody would leave him alone and stop asking if he was okay. He already let them know the fire did not affect him. He just figured it was an accident. He was just glad to be alive. However, his parents knew the truth.
Jake, seating in the front passenger seat, was enjoying his blueberry Pop Tart. He loved them so much that he always had some in his pocket wherever his goes. However, he could not shake off an unusual feeling he had at the back of his mind. It was a persistent feeling that would not go away. On the night of the fire, when he walked down the stairs, he saw the same person at the front counter passing him by. The individual was dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt, with black pants and shoes. The only thing that stood out was his pale face with the dark circles under his eyes, and Jake swore to himself that he recognized that face from before. At the time, passing that person did not mean anything. Jake figured he was trying to check up on someone or kick someone out. However, from the laundry room, he saw a person dressed in the same outfit running away from the fire scene. He did not know if that was the same person, so he did not want to make a big deal. He just continued chomping away at his tasty treat.
Major Sands did not let last night’s event weigh heavily on his mind. He had other things to worry about, his father. The real problem was the use of his vacation time. He wanted to convince his family to go to Japan instead of using his vacation time to fix his father’s home. However, the final decision relied with his family, so he finally broke the silence.
“Okay listen up, I am only going to say this once.” Everyone jumped a little. They were not expecting anyone to talk. “Here’s the situation, I have some vacation time coming up in two days. I want to know what the entire family thinks we should do. But, before anyone speaks I’ll just tell you my plans first.” He took a deep breath. “I think we should go to Japan. It’s supposes to be beautiful in the summer. What does everyone else think?”
“But Dad, what about what Grandpa said?” Traveler pleaded.
“Yeah honey, I thought we were going to fix his place up.” Mrs. Sands seconded the idea.
“Look, I don’t take a lot of vacations. I don’t want to spend my time off working,” Major Sands explained.
“But honey, your Dad has done so much for us. After not speaking for years and then telling Traveler to sell the house, I think we should do it.” Major Sands turned to Jake for the final vote. “Jake, what do you think?”
“Grandpa lives closer to us than Japan and doesn’t he live next to a lake? I am down for the water sports.” His idea of a water sport was watching girls swim in the lake.
“Okay, three against one. We’ll go to Grandpa’s house.” Major Sands said in disappointed baritone voice.