{"id":6048,"date":"2024-11-23T02:48:28","date_gmt":"2024-11-23T02:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/?p=6048"},"modified":"2024-11-23T02:48:28","modified_gmt":"2024-11-23T02:48:28","slug":"as-a-child-i-saved-a-girl-from-a-fire-years-later-i-was-shocked-to-see-my-childhood-photo-on-my-bosss-desk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/as-a-child-i-saved-a-girl-from-a-fire-years-later-i-was-shocked-to-see-my-childhood-photo-on-my-bosss-desk\/","title":{"rendered":"As a child, I saved a girl from a fire \u2013 Years later, I was shocked to see my childhood photo on my boss\u2019s desk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
As a child, I risked my life to save a little girl from a burning house. I still remember the choking smoke, cracking wood, and her frightened cries. Years passed, and I moved on, landing a job at a tech company. My boss, Linda, was known for being tough but fair. One day, as I walked by her office, a framed photo on her desk caught my eye. It was a black-and-white picture of me, as a boy, rescuing the girl from the fire. I froze. Why did she have it? COULD SHE BE THAT GIRL? That evening, I gathered the courage to ask her. The memories of that scary experience and the smoke of the flames burning my lungs has been something I could never fully forget. Chunks of that faithful day haunted me long after I acted by pure instinct and ran into the burning house in an attempt to save the girl whose calls for help echoed throughout the neighborhood from the fire.\n\n\n\n I\u2019m still haunted by my neighbor\u2019s voice yelling, \u201cI called help already, don\u2019t get inside. You are going to die.\u201d As I tried to make my way through the tiny window, I could hear my favorite jersey tearing apart. The palms of my hands were burnt, and I kept asking for the child inside to guide me to her with her voice through the fire.\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m scared,\u201d she kept repeating over and over again. \u201cI\u2019m scared too,\u201d I said. \u201cBut we are going to make it out alive.\u201d She clung to me with her tiny hands. I thought to myself, \u201cThis girl isn\u2019t older than eight.\u201d\n\n\n\n As I tried to lift her towards the tiny window, a heard someone saying, \u201cI have her.\u201d That same guy then pulled me out of the window and I collapsed in the ground, trying hard to gasp some fresh air. \u201cYou are bravest young man I have ever seen,\u201d one of the firefighters said to me and put his hat on my head. In the next moment, I was on my feet, with the girl I saved in my embrace, posing for a photo that would turn that moment into eternity.\n\n\n\n Twenty-three years later, I still thought of the girl. Following the incident, I have never heard of her again. I always wondered how her life turned out and whether she thought of me as much as I thought of her.\n\n\n\n That day, after a successful presentation on my emergency response system prototype that made an impression at the executives, I was about to meet my new boss; a woman named Linda. She was known for her bold decisions and for taking risks. Those who worked with her described her as a strict woman committed to her job entirely. Once I got out of the elevator, a huge room full of office cubicles stretched out before me. \u201cWelcome Mr. Eric,\u201d the woman at the reception greeted me. \u201cFollow me, please,\u201d she said and guided me towards the corner office.\n\n\n\n I felt a bit nervous because I didn\u2019t know what to expect, but the moment I entered that office, my heart raced even more. On the wall, a familiar picture caught my eye. It was the photo of me as a 12-year-old boy and that little girl whose life I saved from the fire.\n\n\n\n Linda, my boss, asked me if everything was alright. With a shaky voice I asked her why she had that photo there and where did she find it. She took it and went through the frame with her fingers. It felt as though she had done it plenty of times before.\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s me,\u201d I barely uttered. \u201cAnd you are the girl whose life I saved. I wondered what happened to you,\u201d I said.\n\n\n\n Looking straight into my eyes, Linda said, \u201cOh my God, it\u2019s really you. I could never forget your eyes.\u201d\n\n\n\n Over time, we bonded through our job and our past experience.\n\n\n\n
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But as a 12-year-old boy, I didn\u2019t think of any consequences. Everything I could think of at that moment was to get inside the house.
\n\n\n\nAfter what seemed like an eternity, I spotted her under a wooden desk.\n\n\n\n
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What I didn\u2019t know was that our paths would cross again in the most unexpected way over two decades after that fire.\n\n\n\n
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All the memories came flooding back like a restless river.\n\n\n\n