Last August I was asleep in the bedroom of the apartment I shared with my boyfriend, Brett, who was at work. About 1:30 in the morning I woke up and the floor was on fire. It was a small fire and I was groggy, so I tried to put it out with water–a big mistake since it was an electrical fire from a lamp. It quickly spread to the dirty laundry on the floor, and the smoke was getting bad. Right then my neighbors knocked on the door, yelling, “Let’s get out of here!” I said, “I have to get Iaido and Ronin, my cats!” I looked back and the bedroom was like a wall of flame, and then I blacked out. The next thing I remember is sitting on the grass amid all these fire trucks and police thinking, “This isn’t happening.” All our neighbors were outside, and I looked around and one of them turned out to be a regular from here. As out of it as I was, I’m like, “Hi, I know you from the bar. How are you?” Then they started axing out our windows and flames were pouring out, and finally what was happening really hit me and I called Brett. After he asked if I was OK, he said, “Where are the cats?” and I said, “I don’t know,” and apparently–it’s all kind of a blur–I became hysterical, crying, “Where are the cats? The cats are still in there!”
