Pound pound pound pound.
I sleepily rolled over. This incessant banging on my neighbor’s door was the first sound I heard since I paused "Seinfeld" two hours ago. Cue slap bass.
Pound pound pound pound.
“What the hell,” I thought. 5:30 am. I staggered to look through the peephole. My neighbors were floating down the steps single file and I heard the word “fire."
I wasn’t alarmed. I was half asleep and I didn’t smell smoke. I looked out the window to see about 20 people mingling along the fence.
I called 911. “I think there might be a fire in my building?” When the operator knew I was calling from Brookside without having to tell her, I began to take this fire thing a bit more seriously.
So I joined my neighborhood outside, still feeling a bit blase and lackadaisical. Then I saw the flames.
I had two immediate thoughts: My roommates. My cats. It was the building to our right that was ablaze, but no telling how fast it would spread.
When I robbed my roommates of their peaceful sleep I was thanked. My indoor cat was less appreciative when I introduced her to the outside world for the first time. I’ve scratch marks to prove it.
The seriousness of the situation began to set in. Six a.m. on a sticky Florida morning I was in a parking lot surrounded by my neighbors. I’d never talked to many of them, but I’ve seen them. I’ve seen them laugh and fight. I’ve seen them carry groceries from their car and put their children on the school bus. And now I’ve seen them watch in horror as flames issued from the windows and doors of their homes.
I saw the skinny 15-year-old crying in her mom’s arms. Her books were burning. If she kept a diary, that was burning too. I sat on my concrete stoop and watched.
As the flames destroyed building 8409, another wall disintegrated. Neighbors that never talked were talking. People that waved from distant staircases were now hugging. A burning building built this bond. Nobody was hurt and everyone was alive.
Tonight an ashen building sits ominously in the moonlight. Twenty-four hours ago perhaps someone in that building was eating a delicious meal. Maybe their downstairs neighbor was falling asleep to their favorite movie. The windows are now boarded. The bed is now ashes. The sirens and the police cars have gone.
Forty-eight hours later, I’m next door and still unable to sleep.
This article appears in Sep 9-15, 2010.