Fire

I was awakened by the sounds of screams. I didn’t know that at first. All I heard was loud noise wafting in from outside, just barely registering into my sleep above the din of the fan that was cooling me on the warm summer morning.

 I vaguely rolled over, annoyed that someone was being so noisy while I tried to rest. The sun was just barely beginning to rise. I turned off my fan to get a better listen to what was going on out there. That’s when I heard the screams and the response from a man in words I couldn’t quite make out. I went to the window to peer out to make sure that there wasn’t a need for help. That’s when I saw the smoke and flames.

Credit: Adobe

The sight jolted me into better consciousness, scaring the sleep right out of me. The smoke and fire seemed to be coming from beneath my window. In a panic, I began to scramble for clothing. I had fallen asleep in a pair of panties and nothing more. I rushed to pull on a pair of jogging pants and a sweatshirt that laid on a pile by the closet door. I then grabbed my phone, keys, and rushed for the exit. 

As I made it to the door, I had a vague thought to grab my wallet, but it seemed foolish to waste any time with the smoke beginning to make its way into my apartment. So, I threw open the door and hurried down the flight of stairs to outside. The view from there was even more terrifying. 

The apartments on the right side of mine were completely engulfed in flames. As I backed away from the fire, crossing the courtyard, I heard the desperate screams of a woman, crying out for help. I will never forget the sound of her pleading voice, fighting against the smoke. There was a man outside yelling back, “Where are you?”. She only cried out more in desperation, pleading for someone to rescue her. I didn’t know whether the tears in my eyes were from the smoke or from my own feelings of helplessness. 

Around a corner, another woman came forward, tears streaming from her eyes. She looked at me in despair and asked, “Is she okay?”. I could just barely shrug my shoulders in answer. The smoke was so thick that it began to choke me. I stumbled, in a daze, towards the other side of the complex. People were coming out from the other buildings to look. The other occupants of my building poured out. As I turned my back to the fire, unable to watch it burn any longer, I looked vaguely up to the sky. The smoke was creating a thick cloud above the building. Suddenly, the screams stopped. I sent up a silent prayer that it was not what I thought it was. As I paced back and forth, still mostly dazed, I began to hear the sirens. 

My senses were dulled by the edible I had taken before going to sleep. I had barely slept 2 hours after a week of poor rest. After finally getting comfortable and falling asleep I found myself jolted from that sleep by a nightmare. I had no idea what to do. I did not know where to go. I paced back and forth, the unfolding scene around me barely feeling real. People tried to ask me questions, but my responses were just physical, not verbal. I could not speak. I walked vaguely back to the building to find the firefighters beginning their battle with the flames. I could see the smoke coming heavily from the window of my apartment. Someone said, “It looks like that apartment is on fire too.”

Credit: Adobe

I looked at my apartment, the place I had worked so hard to attain. At one point working two jobs, over 60 hours a week, just to save up money to get out on my own, only to be standing outside that promised land six months later already beginning to mourn the total accumulations of my life.  My books. My photos. My laptop. My notebooks with writing I had never worked up the courage to make public. The all-blue décor I had decorated my small kitchen with. The patio furniture that I had just bought about a week prior. The centerpiece from my friend’s daughter’s quinceañera. My box full of memories that I had been preserving for years. My sister’s birthday gift that I was planning to bring to her party that day. Everything turned to ash. And there I stood, having paid my rent on time every single month, homeless. I had places to go, but I felt that I was back at square one, no longer an independent woman on her own.

The flames began to die, three apartments completely blackened from the fire, and my apartment stood just on the other side of the fire wall. No telling what condition it was in. All I knew was that I had watched a firefighter through the windows break in my door and open the window that I watched him through. I took out my phone and texted my parents to alert them that my apartment building was on fire. It was just before six in the morning on a Saturday in the middle of June. A hot day, made only hotter by the fire. 

As things started to quell and the fires were finally put out, it was said that nobody had lost their life. One woman was taken to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. The rest of us who had lived in those buildings were directed to the complex’s office to meet with FEMA. As I walked away from the building, still numb, I could not help but think of all I had lost. All of the things I had worked so hard for. It was a different kind of ache that I tried to interrupt with gratitude. I was alive. I should be happy. Yet I found myself feeling lost and completely unable to fathom the magnitude of what I had just experienced. 

During the interview with FEMA, I was barely able to answer the necessary questions and listen to the information given. I would have to find somewhere else to sleep tonight. I was informed that my apartment had not in fact burned, although the smoke damage made it uninhabitable. We had to have renter’s insurance, so I would have to deal with my insurance company moving forward to receive help with damages. I was told by the worker that I would be receiving $500 to my bank account to help me get a hotel room and whatever else I needed to get through the night. I was given a small bag of toiletries and then guided back to the building by an older woman who lived in the complex. 

I could hardly feel relief that I had not in fact lost everything because it was time to get down to business. Upon entry I was instantly hit with smoke so overwhelming that it made my eyes water. The contents of my apartment were all over the place, but still there. I walked through, grabbing what I could to get through the night, which essentially included a small garbage back with some clothes, my laptop, my notebook, a pen, my bookbag, wallet, and a few other personal items that reeked of smoke, but still were salvageable.

As I walked out of my home towards my car to drive to my mother’s house to stay a while, I thought about how bizarre life could be. Only a few hours prior I had been a single woman, living alone, enjoying my freedom. That morning, I had laid across my bed, allowing the high from the edible to carry me away, blissfully unaware of what that day would ultimately mean. 

By afternoon, I didn’t know if I would be able to return to my apartment, had two events that I would still get to, and was left feeling completely blindsided. The next day I would be returning to work to make money that would hopefully help me furnish the things I would need for the next stage, whatever that would be.

It would not be the end of me by any means, but it was an event that would mark me in ways that I wouldn’t be able to interpret for quite some time. Even after I called the complex and was informed formally that I would have to move out, I did not know what was in store for me. 

I would be able to file a claim with my insurance and get a fire restoration crew to help me recover a good portion of my things. However, I would be marked by the events of that day in ways that I barely knew how to register. Even after the nightmares that echoed that woman’s scream, it would take me a moment to realize that I had truly been affected. I had gone to work the next day and went on with things, being a grown-up about it.

Credit: Adobe

However, a few weeks later, driving down the street on the fourth of July, looking out for the fireworks that I love, I would see some smoke wafting from a home. The sight of smoke going up to the air would immediately take me back to that fiery morning when for a short time I thought everything I had worked for had gone up in flames. 

I would shake it off to realize that it was just a man at his barbecue grill. Even in the relieved chuckle I let out to break up the tension were the sparks of a trial by fire. I had thought I was a grown woman when I got the keys to my first apartment. I did not begin to feel like one until I was left with the ghosts of the life I had there, vaguely anticipating when I would turn the keys into my next sanctuary. But I survived.