The Firefighter in the Snow

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It had been a beautiful house, 1313 Aurora Avenue. The façade painted blue, the windows big and arched, the front door inviting. The garden once won the local “Beautiful Landscapes at Home” award four years in a row. It had been a welcoming house. Warmly illuminated windows at night, and meticulously arranged Christmas lights during the season.

Now it stood empty; the only house in Aurora Avenue that was a part of the dark. Not even the festive lights from the neighboring garden reached all the way through the trees and the hedge to it this year. It seemed surrounded by a cloud of impenetrable glumness. As if it were hiding in the darkness of the arctic. As if it weren’t a part of this world anymore.

* * * *

All the way across the United States, New York City was drowning in Christmas decorations. During the day, honking cars and chatting pedestrians competed with random Christmas songs that wafted out of shops and into the streets. Beautiful people whose lives were perfect smiled down from advertisements on the world below. Santa Claus took the subway, and his elves worked at the mall. At night, when the traffic slowed down, it was difficult to make out the stoplights amidst all the blinking and glowing. Three days ago, it had snowed, but the only thing that hadn’t melted was the wet chill.

A countdown glowed on a larger-than-life billboard in a quieter part of Brooklyn. It was on top of a parking garage, opposite an apartment building that had seen better days. White digits on a red background. Its light shone all the way across the street and through the window of a living room that was, ironically, perfectly devoid of any seasonal decorations. A small apartment with second-hand furniture that gave the place a random look. What could have been turned into hip, thrift-store chic by someone who cared, looked thrown together in this place; desolate. Few books were on the bookshelves. No trinkets on the windowsills, no unnecessary clutter. Even the kitchen looked like an abandoned showcase rather than a lived-in room. It held no warmth. The only thing that looked well loved was the toaster oven. The trashcan was digesting a bunch of pizza cartons.

The tenant of the place was in the tiny bedroom, also illumined by the billboard. Thirty-two-year-old Cody Laughman was dreamlessly sleeping through the first night in weeks. His black hair was trimmed short, and when he wasn’t asleep, his eyes were blue and wary. He was a firefighter; he had just got off the night shift three days ago. It always took him a couple of nights until he adjusted to the new rhythm. The red and white light of the billboard shone through the curtains and painted numbers on Cody’s exposed chest: 12:22:37. Days, hours, minutes until Christmas.

Cody turned in his sleep, in sync with the minutes on the billboard changing to 36.