Insomnia is a phenomenon that I have never liked. Lying in bed and thinking to myself is something I like to do, if I am not trying to get to sleep. When I am, thoughts only become a nuisance to my goal of unconsciousness. So image how pissed I was when last night, after finally getting to sleep, the main smoke alarm went off.
Well, I wasn’t really mad so much as I was very suddenly wide awake. The house that I live in has one of those built in smoke alarm systems, and it is very loud. I have often heard it when they are cooking dinner upstairs, and I have learned to not panic when it goes off, and to even ignore it if the time is appropriate. Of course, it has never gone off at 3:00 in the morning before. So after getting to sleep approximately 20 minutes before, my unconscious state was shattered by this shrieking banshee on the ceiling. Needless to say, this really got my attention. All kinds of images started to leap into my mind. The house being on fire being most prominent among those. I imagined rest of the basement (I only occupy half) on fire, and what I would do if I discovered it was. I have always wondered why, when things turn really spectacular in an undesirable way, why I don’t panic. Inappropriately, sometimes.
The first thing I thought of were birch trees. Back in grade whatever I remember them telling us to make a plan with our parents concerning where to meet in the case that the house was on fire. The birch trees were where we were going to meet. This wasn’t really applicable here. I had already turned on the light, and was beginning to think that maybe I should perhaps go outside and assess the situation from there when the alarm suddenly stopped. Then I heard the people upstairs talking, thumping on the floor with their feet. One said to another to go back to bed. And that was it. Silent.
Just lets try and get to sleep after that shall we?
Of course, there was no fire, and I have yet to gain an explanation for why the alarm went off. For all I know, someone tried to get a quick indoor smoke late last night, without thinking of exactly the consequences might be. I might have appreciated someone telling me what was going on.
I had a great amount of time in which to think at this point. I do have a plan on how to get out of here in the case of a fire or other emergency evacuation situation. I’ve given it thought, and I have also covered myself in case I begin to desire to take things with my on my departure. The briefcase.
Recently I have seen two instances where it was necessary to distribute someone’s belongings to other family members. This seldom goes well, as I have both observed and heard from others. I am not sure if the resultant fighting is because they are intimately attached to the objects in question, or if they simply desire stuff at the cost of others not being able to get it. As I child I used to be very attached to my possessions, maybe that is the way that most children are, I don’t know. Recently, however, I took stock of my numerous possessions and determined exactly what was irreplaceable. Not what was important, but what I couldn’t replace by just going to a store. So I took all of these things, and I managed to fit them into a briefcase. Granted, much of it consists of things that I have written myself. Irreplaceable because I could write them again, but never quite in just the same way. I also have a .ZIP disk of around 50 megabytes of text files, also things that I have written in the past number of years. A copy of this web site and the others I have built for other people too, of course. I have many books that I really enjoy reading, but the only one that has meaning outside of the fact that it is simply a book is also in the case. There are photos, and a few articles that have been given to me by various persons in the last few years.
That’s it. It all fits into a briefcase. This is what I grab if I have the presence of mind to do so as I flee my suite for whatever cause. I believe that the pursuit of property and the worry of the loss of it is uppermost too often in peoples minds. I cannot know what is in someone’s mind, but I observe their actions and come to this conclusion through them. And I know that I don’t want to be like that again. And I also know that I shouldn’t be starting sentences with “and”, but who’s reading this anyway?