She said,
"you won't believe what I'm looking right now.
The flames must be fifteen ******* feet above the roof"

And I went outside and I could see the plume of smoke like it was a block up from the house
so I ran back in and got everyone out of the house and we hopped in the car and sped off
toward
the flames
-just like a gruesome car accident-
and when we finally came within a few blocks it looked like the revolution
gone and started without us
people were running and jumping fences
to get closer to it.
So we got out and started running
through back alleys
and back yards
and suddenly, we came around a corner
and there it was.

They said the building was abandoned, that no one had been inside when it started.
It wasn't much of a building now.
It was a skeleton
and the flames were maggots picking it clean.
Inside was like the brightness of the sun
and the fire crews were giving it all the water in the world
to little avail.
Gigantic plumes of tiny embers were jetting from its open ribs into the twilight-
falling all over houses and businesses

and all I could think was
"what if it
doesn't
stop?
What if this is it? and it can't be contained?
and the whole
city
goes down with it?"
We were standing in the middle of a riot ready to happen-
it was like a backdraft-
an explosion minus one ingredient-
a single exhaled breath.
So what if this is it?
What if the end starts right here, right now?

So I began to root for the fire, not the firefighters.
I prayed for it to collapse
and eject all that hot ash over everything
to end us all.

But it didn't.
and after fifteen minutes or so the firefighters were winning.
So we turned on heel
and we hobbled home.

Live to fight another day.