Summer Fire!

i was in a middle of conversation with a long-lost friend who visited me at work when suddenly a colleague came out of the door behind me and shouted "there's fire in the neighborhood!" i was terrified not by his breaking news but by the way his lines pierced my eardrum... i went outside to check things out and true enough a black smoke billowed just above some structures which are a stone's throw away from our office...

that was about 4.30- p.m. (11 april 2005)

shortly, sounds of wailing sirens, of traffic cops' whistles, of honking cars, of raging fire and the shouts of victims and the cries of children dominated the airwaves while curious onlookers started to mill around the fire scene...

with the presence of international consultants and volunteers in our workplace, the scene of multi-colored people helping one another hauling computers, printers, books, files and everything their adrenaline can muster looks like a magazine feature story that had this title: "Filipino bayanihan goes international"

while everybody else was in frenzy, i went back inside and picked up my purse and two envelopes of personal files including photos (which I guess are one of life's valuable possessions), then i went out for safety..

i thought it was weird because i never did panic nor felt some surge of adrenaline; (maybe my exposure to a number of shocking realities, thanks to my stint as a news reporter, had something to do with it) there was something in my gut telling me that our edifice would be spared... i had all the presence of mind to utter a little prayer for the fire to stop, that no limbs and lives would be wasted...

and God heard my prayer....