twosmallmonsters

"What is it with people? We hear sirens and we go- no we run, toward them," Wendy says, leaning against her door. We are standing around in the hallway in front of Wendy and my apartment. We are dripping wet and in rather embarassing clothes. Me specificially: purple shorts that Ben accidently ripped last weekend (the tear huge and the torn fabric still hanging down my thigh), white athletic socks, slip on black shoes, my Northwestern long sleeve t-shirt, and those crazy white legs of mine. I am also wearing glasses which I can see almost nothing through between the smoke, rain splatters, and fog. And tonight, in this very same outfit, I met three handful of neighboring apartment renters.

The story goes that it stormed (storming really not being a powerful enough word) yesterday and last night. Lightning cracked in the parking lot, blew out radio stations, power, and apparantly buildings. Sheets of rain baptised Megan and I in the morning as we braved our twenty minute walk to class. It was after the Gilmore Girls that night that wild noises filled the apartment. Was there a train nearby us that I was hearing? It was later that I smelled smoke. The only alternative to the smell would be the pope wandering our alley throwing holy incense at our windows. One, two, three knocks down the hall. Jamie, the sourthern actuary, rallied us up. Neighbors flocked to the random, large, yet mutually agreed cozy dresser Wendy is keeping in the hallway. Is it our apartment? Do you smell smoke? Yeah, I smell smoke. Do you think the basement's on fire?

We are three Nancy Drews and one Hardy Boy as we creep down the stairs of our apartment. I follow my emergency protocal ("as if this happens every night, Jenny grabs her phone and book of emergency numbers," Wendy says) and we are guiltily thankful when the fire is not in our building. It is across the street. Sheets of rain are still falling and we find ourselves jumping from building awning to building awning-soaking more rain and meeting more people as we get closer to the scene of activity. Why is it in these moments I am the paranormal wearing the ripped shorts and athletic socks? Earlier last month, tornado sirens blaring at 10 pm, Wendy took one look at me and commented: "Well if you are gonna die, that's definitely the outfit to be taken in." (Similar outfit to last night but I added a brown short skirt to the mix to keep some kind of dignity.) However I am thankful that there was no fire in the basement, no one was hurt, and I am thankful for such a community of neighbors. "And remember," Jan says on the phone. "I bought you that emergy escape ladder to throw out your window." Ah, yes, I can sleep soundly now.