FIRE!

You wouldn't believe what happened to me last Thursday night. A fire broke out two buildings away from where I live. Some of you might have heard about it. It was also in the national evening news. The church of the Seventh Day Adventists in front of the Capitol building was burned down to the ground.

It was around 10.30 in the evening and I was reading when I noticed that the occupants of the other rooms in my floor were running down the stairs. When I opened my door, the suffocating smell of smoke assailed my nostrils. There was a fire nearby, they said, and that we should all get out. I came back inside my room and put on a second shirt over the one I was already wearing. I desperately looked around to find out what I should bring along. I thought about unplugging my system unit, but thought it was too heavy.

Here comes a natural calamity and all I could think of is my computer and my files in the hard drive. Give me a break. That's years worth of file accumulation.

Anyway, all I ended up bringing was my mobile phone. When we all got to the ground floor, we crowded ourselves together. I noticed that most of the other tenants were in their sleepwear and all carrying their own phones. We were right outside our building's parkway where we saw the blazing fire eating up the old wooden house across the street. A giant bonfire. It was chaotic. Firetrucks, firefighters, police, ambulance, media coverage. A woman even fainted from shock.

A freshman kid named Marga clung to me. She tightly held my forearm and kept telling me how scared she was. I just found out that we have been floormates for a couple of weeks now. That night was the first time I saw her. She heard me praying under my breath and prayed along with me. My prayer was repetitive and uncohesive. Somewhere along the Our Father's, Hail Mary's, and Glory Be's, I think I might have also recited Grace before Meals. No freaking kidding.

I really didn't know what to do. I felt all alone and I couldn't think of anyone to ask help from. I finally texted my brother and sister about my situation. Which is really stupid because my brother's in Cagayan and my sister's in Manila. I am in Cebu, for crying out loud. Panic has taken over my logic.

My sister called me up and told me to stay where I was because she contacted Jansen and asked him to come over my building and help me out. He arrived a few minutes later and told Marga and I to distance ourselves from the area because it was dangerous to stand so close to the fire where electric posts might fall over. He led us a few meters away and stayed with us until the chaos subsided. Jansen asked me why I didn't call him up directly and my sister from Manila had to be the one to tell him about the fire. Well, I forgot about him. I couldn't think straight at the time. Of all the things I could've brought, all I managed to bring was my phone. No wallet, no valuables, no documents, nothing. How stupid is that?!

Anyway, we were finally allowed to get back into our own rooms at around midnight. Before he left, Jansen told me to text him if anything else happens. We're already like family, he said. Very true.

I didn't get to sleep right away that night. Not only because the electricity was turned off due to the fire, but because I couldn't stop thinking about what happened. What could have happened. How life sometimes gives you these little jolts of reality checks. How blessed I am to be safe. Before I went to bed, with a warily-guarded candlelight, I wrote to God.

Someone asked me whether my entries in this blog actually happen or just made up. They're all true. I guess you could call these entries as candid snapshots of my everyday life. My own personal scrapbook of mundane experiences. I don't know how to explain it, but it validates my existence somehow.