alarm. edit.

I love my bed.  It’s actually th most comfortable place in the world, I think.

I was excited to go to bed last night because I would get to sleep in my big ol’ bed with my giant comforter all to myself all wrapped up in a cocoon.  Pure bliss!

I was asleep around 11.  2.5 hours later, I was not. 

The building’s fire alarm went off.  It’s the most horrible sound.  So I jumped out of bed and threw on my housecoat.  …then I froze.  I could hear someone, presumably out in the hall, screaming and crying.  I’ve never heard anyone make this horrible wailing sound before.  I thought, "OH FUCK, I’m going to have to jump out the window and climb down the tree because the place is going to burn down!"

I went to the front door and the wailing had moved farther away and then I couldn’t hear it at all.  I looked out the peep hole.  Nothing.  I tested the doorknob.  Cold.  I opened the door and looked out.  All the doors were shut down the hall, which they do automatically when the alarm goes off, I guess to slow fire from spreading.  And the alarm on the wall?  Pulled.  Someone had pulled it right beside my condo door.  Shit, I thought, there’s some real trouble happening. 

I shoved my feet into boots and grabbed my keys and locked my door and headed down the stairs.  When I got to ground level I saw through the glass in the door an old lady peeking out her door.  I opened the stairwell door and said "I think we’d better evacuate."  And then a wild eyed woman holding a giant MagLight flashlight ran down the hall and shouted, "Did you hear that?  Did you hear the screaming?  WHere’s it coming from?!?!"  And I told her I’d heard it but I couldn’t anymore and we should go outside. 

We were walking down the hall to the outside door when more people joined us from up the stairs.  I asked them if they’d heard the woman and they said that yes, it was coming from right above their apartment and that it had dimmed and gone away.  We all murmured about what could be going on and as we walked outside we heard it once more.  Whoever was wailing had moved outside and was doing it in the parking lot now.  I met up with my neighbours from across the hall and they said that the wailing had woken them up before the fire alarm went off and they must have pulled it.

We went to the front of the building, closer to the wailing woman, who we could now see was in her pyjamas, hysterically crying, no shoes on, and a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.  I chose to keep my distance because in my sleepy mind she seemed dangerous.  Someone went over as we all stood in silence watching and hugged her and kept asking her what was wrong, was she ok, here, sit down, what happened?  The only audible words were "I’m sorry"  "I hurt everyone".

My neighbours and I looked at each other.  What to do?  The fire truck pulled in and the woman wailed even louder.  Our caretaker came around and mumbled "I think she needs professional help" as he passed. 

The firemen checked out the building, gave us the go-ahead to go back in, and so we did.

As we walked down our hall on the third floor we were sure we could smell smoke.  I had trouble going to sleep again, worried that the place really was on fire, then reminding myself over and over that the firemen don’t just let people into burning buildings.

THis morning I slept straight through my alarm and was 40 minutes late for work.  On the way in I was thinking about it and I assume she did have a small fire in her place (thus the smell), then she panicked, started crying really loud, pulled the fire alarm, and ran out without putting on shoes.  She was sorry that she had set our building on fire and assumed she had hurt us all. 

I’ll find out.  I’m a sleuth like that.

***

After my extensive detective work, (I asked a neighbour I happened to run into), I have learned that there was, in fact, a fire in the woman’s kitchen.  She was not crazy or drunk.  Simply overly and entirely too loudly emotional is all.  So, good.  Not that she set her apartment on fire in the middle of the night somehow, but that we weren’t all kicked out of bed for no good reason.  A real fire is a good reason, I think.  And high five for the whole (entirely wooden) building containing 100 apartments not going up in flames.  High five, EVERYONE!