Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

“This is so fucked up! My Dad’s a Firefighter. We had smoke alarms in the house. How could this happen?”
“I don’t know man. It…I don’t know.”

I’m back in that favorite doughnut place with my best friend again. This time the conversation is very different.

“It doesn’t make any sense. None of them woke up at any point and noticed? Not one of them thought, ‘Gee, it’s really hot in here’ or ‘I wonder where all the smoke is coming from’? I mean fucking burned alive! How horrible is that!?”
“Actually, when people die in a fire like that, it’s from smoke inhalation. They suffocate before the flames get to them. It’s very rare that someone actually burns alive.”
“Well thank God for small favors!” I say sarcastically.
“I just figured you’d feel better about it if you knew that it was at least…peaceful.”
“Sigh…I guess. OK, yeah you’re right. I’m glad that they weren’t burning and screaming with their skin melting off when they died. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re gone.”
“I know.”
“If someone had called sooner and if the fire trucks had gotten there faster, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe one of them would have woken up when they heard the siren and gotten everyone out.”
“Maybe, but…”
“And how did the fire even start!? Did someone leave a candle burning or a curling iron plugged in or something? My family’s too obsessive compulsive and afraid of something like that happening to not check and make sure before going to bed.”
“That’s true, but…”
“FUCK! Do you know what the worst part is? The whole time I was at my concert, I was pissed off at them. I thought they just forgot or didn’t feel like driving down or blew me off. I was livid! Come to find out, they were dead. They’re dead and all I could think about is how they weren’t at my concert.”
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up.”
“RRRRGOD!” After this last outburst I got very tired all of a sudden. I put my head down in my arms, on the table. “I just feel…crazy. That’s the only way I can describe it. Does that make sense.”
“It’ll be OK. I don’t know how or when, and I know you probably can’t imagine it being OK, but it will be. You will be OK.”
“God help me.”