Burning Down the House
They say that when you have kids - especially little defenceless ones - you develop instincts of vigilance to protect them from harm. Sadly, such is apparently not the case with me. I learned this morning waking up to Isabelle's voice and the acrid smell of smoke, which I had taken during an earlier bathroom wake-up for the odorous remnants of a fiery chicken marinade Isabelle had made last night, but was in fact the smell of a building on fire.
Now, in my defence, this odour is becoming only too familiar in our neighbourhood as 5 buildings have burnt in the last 2.5 years within 500 metres of our place (3 of them razed to the ground). This new one however was a little close for comfort as the flashing red lights that turned our living room into a make-shift disco attested. It was in fact a building a scant 4 houses up just on the corner of the alley that was in the process of burning through 4 stories.
I think I have seen only one other house fire in my life as a kid on the way back from a ski trip to Vermont and one car on fire in Lebanon NY a few years back. The memories of those events are still somewhat etched in my mind. Seeing a house that you walk by everyday engulfed in flames is a feeling, however, that is likely to make a more indelible mark.
Anyways, it was put out by around 6 AM. Realising that we would most likely not be evacuated (unlike the neighbouring building where 15 people were taken out) we surrendered to the profound need for sleep.
The beast, for her part, slept through the whole thing.