It was my second time to watch a house burning. The first was years and years ago, during New Year ’s Eve, when this old house in a subdivision adjacent to ours burned to ashes after a firecracker accidentally landed on its curtain. The house, being made of wood, was eaten by fire in just a matter of minutes.
This afternoon, I watched my “second house” burn, from our office rooftop. I was about to take my afternoon break when our finance officer said that one of the bungalow houses in Scout Fernandez is burning. Not really hungry and just wanted to be away from my desktop, I hurried to the rooftop and saw a mixture of gray and black, with the arms of the red orange fire trying to reach the sky.
The whole scene reminded me of this chapter in Norwegian Wood where Toru and Midori watched a house burning with a guitar and beer in hand. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the heart to romanticize this reality. In fact, I felt genuinely sorry for the house’s owners. I saw people from the adjacent house taking out LPG, refrigerator, clothes, and whatever things they could save, afraid that their house would be consumed by the fire too. I could just imagine the frustration and the helplessness felt by these people.
The firemen came about 20 minutes after the fire started. What precious 20 minutes, I thought. To their credit, they were able to extinguish the huge fire in no time. I felt that in those lost 20 minutes, the fire also grew inside me.
Sensing that I have already used my 15 minutes, I left the rooftop and went back to my desk. I left the office 30 minutes later and was greeted by the heavy down pour outside.
