I’m settled on the couch, having just begun a movie, when a fire truck zooms past the street below my window. Interesting, but not alarming. A few seconds later another fire truck follows. Now my attention is perked.

In the reflection of the science building next door, I can see the glass windows glowing with red light. The trucks have stopped near the entrance to my apartment complex. Leon jumps up from the couch and cranes his body over the patio. He hurries to our front door.

The second he opens it, smoke exhales into our house and I see the hallway is completely filled with gray mist. The door closes behind him, unlocked, leaving him in the smoky hallway. I instinctively know he’s going to find out where the fire is.

The kitchen smells like a campfire and the air is slightly fuzzy. Why haven’t the fire alarms gone off? This is when they’re needed, not at 7a.m. on monthly Monday morning tests.

Our house could burn down, I think, picturing orange-licking flames shooting from the balcony, me watching from the sidewalk below.

The good thing about me is that I am stunningly calm in crisis.
Wow. My house could burn down. My heartbeat remains the same.

If you’ve had a childhood, you’ve probably played the question games – If you were stranded on a deserted island what 3 things would you take? Who would you bring with you to the island?

If your house burned down what would you save?

As if I’ve done this before, I slide my laptop in its case, open the closet and lift my backpack onto the bed. I’ll need a warm jacket and a good book, cause this might be a while and god forbid I be bored watching my building burn. I scan the Rolodex of things I own, but strangely nothing else comes to mind, nothing that can’t be replaced.

I shove the laptop case into my knapsack and the front door opens. Smoke and Leon pool in. “It’s down that hallway,” he says.

“Is it the apartment with the guys that get high all day,” I ask.

“No.” He points in the opposite direction of the fire trucks, and the weed apartment. “It’s a couple down the other hall. They already put it out with the fire extinguishers.” I’d forgotten they were located in the hallways.

“Ok,” I say, “So we’re good?”

“I think so,” he says.

Still no fire alarm. Through the peep hole, two fire men, fully clothed in yellow uniforms and masks trudge past, their footsteps heavy like their shoes are weighted with iron.

I remove my laptop and throw the bag back in the closet.

“What would you take if we had to leave,” I ask him as we resume our places on the couch.
“You,” he says deadpan.

“For real,” I laugh because I always get his humor.

“I’d probably just leave,” he says, “With you of course.”

I know there would be things that I would miss, the same way I still miss old items of clothing that had sentimental value.

What’s strange is that when faced with evacuating the house, the only items I thought to bring were my laptop, a warm jacket, and a book. It’s similar to what I pack when going to the coffee shop.

Normally, when asked the fire question, I always chose to save my collection of journals, the ones I’ve been writing and keeping since I was fifteen. Strangely, those didn’t make the list this time. In fact, they weren’t even a thought. Instead, what I chose to take was the laptop, with all my current writings, and which had not been backed up for a month. (You bet I backed that bad boy up right away.)

The striking part comes in when I take a look at what these things represent:

The journals represent my past – where I have come from, my old thoughts, beliefs, and the world I lived in.

My laptop represents my future – my competed manuscripts, my unfinished fiction trilogy, my works in process. They are all for my collective future, and that was what I saved this time.

For the first time, I saved my future instead of my past.

What would you choose to save if you had to leave your home? What do these things represent in your life? Are you happy with your choices or might it be time to make a change? Remember, you can always choose differently, even if there’s no fire.

With Love,

Z :)