And then you close your eyes at night, you drift off into another world, and suddenly your own brain is tapping you on the shoulder and saying, Guess what? You’re NOT better! You think you’ve conquered something, you work on it over and over and tell yourself you’re getting better, you will yourself to get better, you congratulate yourself on getting better. I look over at the clock radio, where red fluorescent square numbers tell me it’s half past two.ĭreams suck. I know better than to move right away I remain still until my pulse returns to human levels, until my breathing evens out. My eyes sting from sweat and I wipe them with my T-shirt. “Damn,” I say to nobody in my dark, fire-free room. I tell myself, Breathe, Emmy, suck in the toxic pollution, don’t let the flames kill you, BREATHE.
I lower my shoulder and lunge against the window, a window that was specifically built to not shatter, and ringing out over the alarm’s squeal and the lapping of the flames is a hideous roar, a hungry growl, as I bounce off the window and fall backward into the raging heat. A girlish, panicky squeal escapes my throat, like when Daddy and I used to play chase in the backyard and he was closing in. The flames hit my flannel comforter as my legs kick over to the floor, as I bounce up off the mattress and race the one-two-three-four steps to the window.
It will just hurt for a few minutes, it will be teeth-gnashing, gut-twisting agony, but then the heat will shrivel off my nerve endings and I’ll feel nothing, or better yet I’ll pass out from carbon monoxide poisoning. This is my last chance, and I know, but don’t want to think about, what happens if I fail-that I have to start preparing myself for the pain. The enemy is cornering me, daring me, Go ahead, Emmy, go for the window, Emmy. Still a chance to jump off the bed to the left and run for the window, the only part of the bedroom still available. The orange flames rippling across the ceiling above me, dancing around my bed, almost in rhythm, a taunting staccato, popping and crackling, like it’s not a fire but a collection of flames working together collectively, they want me to know, as they bob up and down and spit and cackle, as they slowly advance, This time it’s too late, Emmy. The putrid black smoke that singes my nostril hairs and pollutes my lungs. The searing oven-blast heat within the four corners of my bedroom. I don’t know how long it’s been going off, but it’s too late for me now. The house alarm is screaming out, not the early-warning beep but the piercing you’re-totally-screwed-if-you-don’t-move-now squeal. This time, it’s too bright, there’s too much smoke. THIS TIME I know it, I know it with a certainty that chokes my throat with panic, that grips and twists my heart until it’s ripped from its mooring.
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