the day my house burned down

The daymy house

burneddown

the day my house burned down

ward long

I woke up at six thirty to hear my roommate yelling, “The house is on fire, the house is on fire.” It was. I grabbed at things that seemed important and ran to the back. The front was all flames, so we had to take the long drop into the neighbor’s yard to make it to the street. Crowd, trucks, helicopter. Thirty firefighters spraying water and hack-ing at the roof. Neighbors gave us coffee in big sytrofoam cups and slippers for the shoeless. The sun rose through smoke.We waited for an hour while captains conferred with chiefs, and then they let us back in. We started at the back and things got worse as we moved to the front. Big death smoke covered everything. Black lines of soot dripped down from the ceiling and crossed white lines of steam somewhere in the middle of the wall. Camille’s cat died of smoke inhalation. Sean’s room was destroyed. Matt and the other Matt had little damage; my room was mostly unharmed.

My clothes smell like charcoal and my things are covered in ash, but they’re all right. I spent the day moving out, dealing with the landlord, and fighting through the greedy crowd of contractors and adjusters at the gate. I left at sundown, showered at Alexis’s place and then she drove me to the hospital. After some waiting, drugging and digging, the doctor got all the glass out of my foot. The cat’s body is in a mini-fridge and still needs burying. I’m washing my clothes with soap and vodka as the inter-net suggested. My mom’s knee replacement keeps getting infected, so she’s back in the hospital. This morning I felt the need to get in touch with you and say that I value you and cherish our friendship. Make sure your fire alarms work, and get renter’s insurance. It’s totally worth it.

Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 5:20 PM

Copyright Ward Long, 2012.

www.wardlong.com

Thanks to Ben Goddard, Wilson McBee, Evan Whale and Gilda Davidian.

Special thanks to Alexis Wade.