Fire

There was a fire in the abandoned building across the street last night. It was about 1 am but I was up anyway, working late. "Hey, there's a fire!" my housemate yelled. It was big, a real one, flames and all. As we ran out to our fire escape to watch, the first fire trucks were already arriving. They broke through the windows and brick on the ground floor with their pressurized hoses, and a big plane of orange flame rushed out.

More and more trucks arrived, ten or more parked down the street and around the corner. The fire fighters seemed in competition to break shit down. Dozens of them swarmed the front, like a mob pillaging a store. They piled into the building and up the building and onto the roof and down into the building. They broke through the brick, sawed through the metal shutters, even broke into the building next door and then broke through the wall. They got up on ladders and shattered all the windows on the front of the building. They got up on the roof and broke through all of the skylights and trapdoors and vents.

All the while great clouds of sooty smoke billowed out the gashes in the brick, an upside down goth crinoline. Through the thick gray veil, the orange of the fire and red of the sirens and yellow of the streetlights mixed took on an alien look, or an ancient look. Something out of movie anyway.

The scene was dramatic and visceral. Stuff got damaged, a mark was made, it felt like something was happening. Our view was perfect.

The next day the whole area smelled of smoke. "Did you see the fire last night?" I asked the morning guy at the cafe downstairs.

"No," he said. He handed me my coffee.

I felt like it should have been more important. But it wasn't. I took my coffee, mixed in plenty of half and half, and got back to work.