Neige

NY's Bravest

Since those good old high school fire drills, you know what to do. All it comes down to is leave everything behind and go. Now.

For a drill, it works. You know that eventually you'll go back to your desk and that goddamn test will still be there waiting for you. In real life though, you want to make a couple of exceptions. I leave everything behind except my passport and immigration papers. oh, and the cash and credit card and Metrocard. Oh, and the laptop.

Oddly enough, I totally forgot the iPod.

The way it started is it sort of smelled like somebody was smoking. A minute or two later, what started only as a faint smell was now reeking of burning plastic. So I left the room to see if my roommates knew what was going on, this time. They knew alright. The kitchen had caught fire. A grey smoke filled the living room despite the open windows. They way the living room looked and smelled, you did not even want to check the kitchen. My roommates were arguing about what had caused the fire. I didn't care too much about that. Once I got confirmation that somebody had put out the fire, I went back to my room uploading and sorting out tons of pictures.

Still, the smoke was getting worse so I opened the window. That's when I heard the fire trucks coming. Because I have an IQ below average, my first thought was : "What a coincidence ! Two fires on the same block at the same time." Then I heard voices screaming, so I looked down and there was a bunch of 7 year old kids yelling at me to go out. The building is on fire. Go! Go! So I leaned further out the window, and looked up, but everything seemed fine. To the hysterical kids downstairs I said, OK, OK. I stepped back, wondering what's going on. 1) They think our little improvised camp fire in the kitchen is a major thing 2) There really is another fire on another floor of the building 3) The fire we had in the kitchen had actually started somewhere else and was still raging.

That's when somebody knocked on the door saying, Er..., Cecyl, we have a problem. So the emergency-thinking kicked in at full speed. Slapping shut the laptop that was desperately trying to upgrade something, to the door I said, "I know, we're out in a sec." To the girl I say, "Fire. We're going out. Now."

That's when the exceptions start applying to the rule. "Get your cash and credit cards, passports, immigration papers."

It's strange, but I didn't think about the books one second, except as fuel for the fire. For some reason, my beloved iPod didn't make it in the list either, whereas the laptop did.

It took less than 2 minutes. To me, it's an all-time record, but I'm sure it would have been too long....

Also, I took the time to close the window. Maybe two years ago, there was a fire in the building across the street. It was in winter too, and I saw the firemen breaking all the windows from downstairs, while others inside were throwing out anything even vaguely flammable. On the street corner, the tenants in tear where talking on their cells while watching their mattresses, clothes, pillows, chairs, CD's etc. fly out the windows.

It's just that, by that time, I had figured out that only option 1 was making sense -- our neighbors had been alarmed by the smoke coming out of our windows --, and that there was no way I was gonna let them flood my room with water for nothing.

As I opened the door, I caught a glimpse of the cat rushing between my legs and under the bed. Stupidly, I closed the door behind me, condemning him.

In the hall, there were silent roommates and a couple of upset firemen. Firemen are funny. When you try to give them important information, they interrupt you with a dry, "we know what we're doing. Just stay back." When you let them do their job, they bitch because you didn't say anything.

Guys, next time you come, you better know what you want.

Yeah, I digress, I know. So, well, d'you think I'd be writing this shit if the building had burned down anyway?

It was the kitchen fire that got all the neighbors call 911. The thing is, in winter, everybody use those small heaters that can be messed up or set fire to something too close to them, so you never know...

It's below zero deg. Celsius outside I'm glad we didn't have to watch the firemen flood the apartment and everything inside.

Come to think of it, I'm sure the reason they were so pissed is that we had put out the fire by ourselves...

No hard feelings guys, you're still New York's Bravest.