As I wiped down the counter, heads started turning, people gasped, then went unbearably quiet. A cloud of black smoke rose dense and deadly from the upper floors of the high-rise building.
When I stepped out onto the patio, there was not a single noise as we stood in horror, a horror we could not avert our eyes from. there it was again, the pain in the pit of my stomach, this dizziness, those glassy eyes.
The pain of watching something or someone burn down, burn out, and knowing that there is nothing you can do to help. So I stand and stared until moments which felt like hours later, the sirens of fire trucks rang in the distance. I noticed that I had held my breath. Only once the sirens got closer, I exhale with the slight relief that it might not be good, but it’s never too late.
Sometimes I am the building. Sometimes I am the spectator, and sometimes the siren in the distance. I smell smoke. I smell rain too.