We had a fire last Friday. Everybody and every cat are fine, spooked and with new appreciation of life, but everyone is well enough.
TLDR: The
front half of my building burnt down, I live on the back half. We alive.
Jake and
Debbie, my neighbors with the guns, (remember I told you I went out shooting
with them?), (that Jake showed me all his guns? Including the sniper riffle and
some kick ass riffle slingshots?) (That I watched the Super Bowl with Debbie,
me explaining what Bad Bunny was saying and all the cultural implications?) (That
Debbie would not let me spend the San Givin alone even though I don’t celebrate
that shit?) (That a year ago Debbie wanted to get cats and now she calls me Cat
Whisperer, because her cats are almost as insane as mine?) Anywho, we live in
the second floor, this is the distribution of the second floor apartments, of 2
floors, one basement. I included the trees:
MS Paint
showing a badly drawn plane of the distribution of the units. The description
is better.
Debbie and Jacob
are preppers, they have a bunch of shit for when the world erupts in World War III
and everyone is going crazy. Food for a year, desalinization machines,
generators, solar panes, all the guns and ammo, other things they haven´t told
me.
They are
going to survive this, and about a year ago I said, something like, “I don’t even have enough
food for this week”, I think. And Debbie said, “don´t worry, we got you, baby.”
And gave me some cans and she now thinks I am always starving. Pero no, I just
don’t store cans. And I had just moved. But she always tries to feed me. Wait,
no. Not anymore.
They lost
everything.
It seems that
Friday night, well, technically Saturday morning, they heard a pop and a thing
with a lithium battery started swelling. Jake grabs it and runs to the balcony
to throw it to the yard. But the thing explodes and lands in the balcony with a
big ass fire.
He wakes
Debbie to get out, opens the door, and pulls the fire alarm from the hallway.
I hear the alarm
noise, wake up very confused, and open the door. Omar, from right across the hallway also
confused, looks at me and says, “¿Qué pedo?” y yo, “No sé, no mames, mira,” And
I look up and I see white smoke on the ceiling, and I walk towards the smoke
and see the fire in the balcony.”¡Fuego!” Le digo. “¡Fuego!”
I turn back
to go home and grab my tiny kitchen fire extinguisher and run back to Jake and
Debbie’s and give him the mini extinguisher. I think Debbie is out. Omar rushes
back in and wakes Bex.
I run downstairs
to get the hallway extinguisher, but it is locked up behind a glass. I break
the glass with my hand and hurry back up, I give the extinguisher to Jake who dives
back in his house.
I race back
downstairs and I notice I slashed my hand, so I grab a shoe from someone’s
hallway and keep running down to the
basement. I get to the next glass case with fire extinguisher and start banging
and banging, but it wont break. So I charge to the other building and up the
stairs and see a fire extinguisher, and I break that glass. I take the fire
extinguisher and get the pin out and run back up.
When I get
back to our floor, I see the firepeople coming in and Jake running out, the
curtains have caught and the ceiling is now with a red flame. The black smoke
starts spreading and fire is raining from his ceiling. My brain glitches and
realise that we might die here.
Please, don’t
be afraid. We won’t die today. We all survive. We all have super minor
injuries.
As I see
the firelady and the dark dense smoke creeping in the hallway, I turn and get
back into my condo and the firelady yells, “Get out Get out!”
I say, “My
cats!!”.
And she asksyells,
“Do You Live Alone?!”
I say “Yes,
my cats. Oh fuck, please ,my cats”
But my cats are nowhere to be seen. I open the
windows and the balcony door, get my coat hanging from my door and shoes next
to the door and run out with her.
I try to get
out the front door, and she yells,” no, through the back!” The front half is
covered in smoke and flames.
I get
outside and run around the building. Omar and Bex are there, as well as the
rest of the neighbors. Jake and Debbie are there, a bit away off, and Jake is
saying something like “my kids” or maybe “my cats”. He is crying and shaking
side to side.
I approach
another firelady, I tell her, “There are
two cats inside, one is inside the sofa.” And this diva fucking amazing what
the actual fuck firelady runs towards the fire and up the stairs, shortly after
she comes out with Chill, the cat.
Firelady
hands Chill to Jake, who grabs Chill and starts crying. Jacob Brown is a Marine,
I would have never thought this guy could have an emotion. His crying makes me
very confused.
I touch
Chill the cat on her head. Chill the cat bites me. She will be fine. She is a
warrior.
I turn and
there is this minifireperson watering the lower floor condos. I tell him, there
is another cat, she is probably behind the TV. He says, “Mam, you have to step
back.” And I say, “You don’t understand, there are two cats,” and he repeats, “Mam.
I told you to step back.” And I get mega pissed and yell, “I am going to need
to speak to someone bigger than you!” And I flip him off. Both fingers. Bex
kind of yells at me and I see her. She’s all like, “Dude stop. You will get
arrested.” And I think, no, these people don’t arrest anyone. They just help.
However,
minifire is useless, so I go back to Bex and Omar, and you know? I notice it is
cold.
Some
neighbors from other buildings come out. “Do you need anything?” They have
blankets with them. “Do you want anything?” I say, “Yes, please, I am parched.”
I have inhaled a bit of smoke and my throat is dry and itchy.
This guy, Quintin,
runs back to his apartment and brings back water. I try opening the bottle but
it keeps slipping, I notice my hand is covered in blood. I also notice glass is
sticking out of my hand, so I pluck the glass out. I am not sure if Omar or someone
else opened my bottle or if I did. But I drink some and use some to rinse my
hand.
I notice
the ambulance is here, and that some guy is in a stretcher. I focus. It is naked
George. I approach Tall fire lady, and ask, “Is George having a panic attack or
heart attack?” and Tall Firelady says,” I am not sure”. And little old Karen neighbor
says, “that George needs to be the center of attention every time. He is faking
it because this is not about him.”
Little old
Karen is with Coco, her tiny Yorkshire dog. Standing next to us in pajamas and
coat. I call Coco, and Coco jumps into my arms and she is all squiggly and tongue
and wiggly and joy. Little old Karen says, “I did not hear the alarms, the
sprinklers did not go off, we will never pass inspection again.” I say, “There
was no smoke in the hallways, we were out before it was bad.” She grunts. I
give her back Coco.
Bex says to
me, “Do you have your keys?” I have nothing. No keys, phone, passport, money, wallet,
nothing. Not even pants, but I would not realize I wasn’t wearing pants until Tuesday,
when thinking, “did I put on pants?” and the answer was no. I was in my
underwear and coat.
I am so
cold. Bex is cold. The manifestation goes out. “It is so cold”.
Bex has her
phone and checks the temperature. 16. Fahrenheit. -10C
Bex did not
grab a coat. She also just had a hysterectomy on Monday. And then, the attic
catches on fire.
I think, oh
no, my cats. I know they have air. But I just hope they will be smart enough to
jump if… I don’t even finish my thought. My cats are hiding, and will
stay hiding.
The tree next
to Debbie and Jake’s condo catches on fire.
Debbie and
Jake cry for their cats.
We are
cold.
Breathing
becomes very hard. It becomes very slow.
I see so
many lights. Up the street a fucking cop is blocking it. We are freezing here,
and the pigs are blocking the street up there.
My hand
hurts, and I remember I have a disinfectant in my pocket. I take it out, and of
course it does not work.
I see the
other neighbor standing next to little old Karen, I ask her, “what is your
name?”
“McKenzie”,
she says. And she tells me that she lives exactly below me. She fosters cats.
She grabbed her own kitties and stuck them in the car, the fosters were not be
able to be caught. “I don’t think after this the fosters will be able to be
adopted. They might have to be barn cats forever.”
I turn my
face towards the building and the fire is out.
I ask Bex
the time. 3 something am.
The
firepeople are folding hoses.
A firedick approaches
the neighbors who gave us the blankets and talks to them. I interrupt and say, “Hey,
when you stop talking to the guys, how about you address the people who actually
live here?”
The
neighbor not-Quintin says something that they are checking if we can go back.
And I try to explain that that is not the point, the firedick should talk to us
and not just assume the men are the ones in charge. And the little old Karen calls
the firedick, “He is just a chauvinistic pig!” The firepig leaves and Tall firelady
approaches.
Tall
Firelady tells us that they have to check that everything is out, that there is
no smoke damage, that the electricity is ok to be turned back on, that they are
checking everything. But the fire is out. So in about an hour or so, we are going
to be able to go back.
Quintin and
not-Quintin offer their places so we can get out of the cold. Omar says,”Oh, I
have my keys. We could go in my car.”
We have
been standing in the foquin cold for almost 2 hours now. Bex is having the most
horrible pains from getting organs removed. I am pantless, I am so cold.
But,
quietly, we go in his car and he turns on the heat. And all of us, Bex, Omar,
and me, we start the loop of what the fire was. Narrating what we saw, what we
experienced. We just lived it, and we are talking about it.
And we will
talk about it incessantly for a week.
And a week
from now, I will write it down so that it stops living in my head. So, I can
put it in paper and make it a story. So ,it stops being a memory and a
nightmare. So, I can continue. I need to make it a story either a short story
or a thing I tell at parties. This has to get out of my head.
I need to
sleep.
Maybe I
will write a metaphor on how preparing from the danger outside is useless as
the danger came from within. But I can’t make it into a story yet, I am still
reliving it.
The Tall Firelady
starts looking for us at 4 am, and I get out of the car. “You can go back in.”
She says.
We walk
through the door, it is all wet. The carpet, the walls, the ceiling. Everything stinks of chemical burns. The
lights are out. The stairs are filled with random debris and glass and pieces
of wood. We get upstairs to our hallway and it is all smoky and dark. I go to
my house and it is dark, the electricity is out. I grab a lantern and go back
out to Bex and Omar.
Bex says, “I
was so unprepared.” I look at her, we are alive.
Then, the
lights go back up.
We look at
each other. Bex says, “Do you want coffee?” Omar and I laugh, Omar says he has to work
early in the morning. I say I really want to get to bed. I hear yelling, it is
coming from downstairs, I make it out, it is the little old Karen, “Where is my
fucking shoe???”
I yell
back, “Somewhere in the building, I´ll find it tomorrow. “
“You better!”
She yells back.
I go back
to my condo and try to look for my cats. In the closet I grope around and feel
one, two. They seem ok. They are alive and not burnt.
I go to
bed, and try to go to sleep. Every 15 minutes I am up because I dream of firepeople
going into my house and telling me to run. I am so cold, I grab another blanket
and all the towels.
It is 4am.
It is 6am.
The cats want to eat. They are meowing and looking at me as if I caused all the
commotion last night. I check my phone and Debbie says, “we just found Journey”.
Journey, the cat, is fine.
Stanno
tutti benne.
Everyone is
fine.
Stuff is
stuff, it matters nothing.
Epilogue
The next
day, or later that Saturday, I ran to Costco to get the biggest mother fuck you
fire extinguisher they had.
I knew how
to use the extinguisher because I did a VR simulation. When you see a fire the
brain does not work. You just act. I did not know I would run to fire extinguisher
and fire, I thought I was a coward and would run out. My body did not do that.
My body knew exactly how to operate a fire extinguisher.
Later that
week, I made all of my colleagues do the fire extinguisher safety simulation in
VR.
Journey the
cat was fine, she hid in a corner. Her whiskers are fine and she got some xrays.
Chill had a dislocated toe which got fixed. They are both ok, eating, and
enjoying a vacation in a hotel.
Jake and
Debbie are fine, no smoke inhalation, no burns. Jake has a mild cut on his hand
from smashing the fire alarm. The Condo was a total loss. We went in and
touching the dry walls would make them crumble. But the total loss included all
of their possessions. I hope they got their guns out.
My cats
started speaking to me on Sunday.
Katia had
suggested I get a glass breaking bracelet. And I did, over 3 weeks ago. I wore
it as I smashed the glass pane with my bare hand and I wore it while trying to
smash the basement glass pane with the little old Karen’s shoe.
algunas salsas
https://www.wmtv15news.com/2026/03/28/100k-damage-after-lithium-ion-battery-ignites-madison-condo/
https://fox47.com/news/local/fire-displaces-2-households-leaves-cat-missing-on-madisons-east-side
