4:30 AM:
Beeping. Beeping. Beep. Beep. Beep. What in the world? Beep. No, not even beeping. Alarms. Alarms going off all around me. LOUD alarms! Ander gets out of bed and leaves the room. I'm still in my Nyquil haze. The hall light is on, I fall back onto my pillows. I could sleep some more if that loud wailing would stop... I hear the front door open. More alarms. "Susie?" Ander yells. I can barely answer him back. "What?"
"This is not a drill. We have to go."
We have to go? There's really a fire somewhere? Instantly my Nyquil stops working. What did I leave on? My straightener? A burner on the stove? The oven? Nothing. Our apartment was quite fire free. I grabbed my phone and my Kindle and a change of clothes. I don't really know why I grabbed my Kindle... honestly. I remember thinking to myself, "This is expensive and I don't want it to burn." Nyqil logic. Clearly. Ander grabbed a change of clothes and May-May and we were out the door.
The apartment on the second floor kitty corner to us was where the fire happened. Someone's couch caught fire. "How does someone's couch just catch fire, Ander?" I ask. "Well, either some kids were smoking pot or someone fell asleep with a cigarette in their hands. That's all I can really think of." I think he's right... why else would a couch catch fire at 4:30 in the morning?
Five fire trucks. Five. The whole apartment was drenched, they had it all under control. Everyone was standing outside just watching. There wasn't anything anyone could do but watch. Water was streaming off of the balcony and below it were the charred remains of a futon. The window frame was black and the glass on the balcony door was broken. What a mess.
5:00 AM:
We got back into our apartment, the alarms had stopped. The night wasn't over for those poor firemen and the people who had been living in the now charred apartment. I thought about how frustrated I would be if I were a fireman and I had to go put out someone's couch that they had ignited with a cigarette. That's mean though, I don't know if it was a cigarette. It could have been anything. But still, we were all dragged out of our homes at 4:30 in the morning because someone was probably just being careless. I didn't sleep at all between 5 and 7:30 when my alarm went off. And when it did finally go off I felt like I had been sat on by an elephant.
It was going to be a long day.
