On the Boat

I slowly open my eyes to find myself in a partially enclosed area of the boat. There is a whole crew of fire fighters standing over me. The chief stands in the center. He is a little on the heavier side and has a mustache. I can see a look of relief on his face. " We weren't sure if you would going to make it." He tells me with a thick brooklyn accent. I attempt to sit up and instead caugh up water and small fish. "Whao, take it easy." The chief says to me as he rushes over and offers his assistance. " You just went through a tramatic ordeal." "You can say that again." The chief shrugs as if he had never heard that expression before. "Ok, you just went through a traumatic ordeal." "Where am I?" "I don't know." The chief tells me causally with a child - like innocence. "What do you mean you don't know?" "I mean I don't know." "But you are the chief. How could you not know?" "I don't know. I just don't." I put my hand to my head. "Do you have a map?" "I don't." The chief turns to his men. " Do you guys have maps?" They all shake their heads "No." "How is this possible?" I ask flabbergasted. "Well, it's simple." The chief exclaims to me. "None of us brought a map when we left our homes this morning." "I gathered that, but you're firefighters. How do you know where you are going?" "Well we just do." " Do you follow the stars? Or some sort of signs from nature?" The chief shakes his head. "Nope none of those." "Then what do you do?" "Well, we leave our homes. We get in our boat. We drive around. We find a fire. We put it out and then we go home." I am stunned it could be that simple. "That's all?" I say. "Well, yeah. How else would you do it?" "I don't know you get a call telling you where the fire would be?" "No, do people do that?" "Yeah, everywhere." The chief laughs to himself. "That's weird. Don't you guys think so?" All the surrounding firefighters nod in agreement. "So you just drive around till you find a fire?" The chief looks puzzled. "We're firefighters. It's what we do. You feeling ok?" I shake my head and change the subject. "Is it still storming outside?" "No, it's beautiful." "What, now its nice out?" One of the fire fighters interrupts. " Yeah, we put out the fires so now it's nice out." I try and rationalize that statement. "And now the world is happy again." He reasurs me. " For now." The chief explains. I still feel somewhat lost. "Before we head home for the night we like to admire our work outside. You wanna join us?" "Sure." I say as I pick myself off the ground.