Eternal Flame

At 5 in the morning on Thanksgiving day I heard the horn of a car blowing outside my window. It was a constant sound as if someone’s head had fallen on the steering wheel. Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonk.

I am getting really sick of this neighborhood I thought, as I lay there and imagined the chaos outside the window. But even my most embellished dreamy thoughts could not have conjured up the image that I was faced with when I looked outside.

There was a car on fire on my block. It was engulfed in high and aggressive flames. The blaze grew and danced wildly like seven angry tigers reaching for the moon. And even though I was safe on the fourth floor of my building, I was scared.

Billows of dark opaque smoke rose from the fire lit by the oblivious orange street light. I watched as the fireman came, they walked right up to it with the hose, and I was afraid it was going to reach the point where it exploded, but it didnt.

And I could not sleep the rest of the night with the insane new image still smoldering in my head. And even tonight, three days later, I am having trouble forgetting it.