so, what happened at school today?

it’s common practice, in the course of bumping into friends you haven’t seen in some time, or while attempting to make idle chatter with that attractive person you’ve just met and are awkwardly trying to impress, to ask a person or group of persons “what’s new?” this query can be posed in any of a number of ways, from the faux pleasant surprise of “i’m sooo happy i ran into you—how have you been?” to the terse, but not necessarily unkind “‘sup?” it’s a simple question, and to the extent that you’ve been walking and breathing for at least a week previous to having this posed to you, it should not be difficult to answer. if, however, you pose the question to someone who has recently been bleeding from/inside the head, or has newly lost a limb to gangrene, the answer is obvious: you’re an @sshole.

for everyone else, this should be a gimme. a softball-toss of a question that’s easy to reply to, and should require little to no thought. sadly, this is not now, nor has it ever been, the case for me. generally speaking, i would have less difficulty if people attempted to begin conversations by casually asking me to delineate the many and varied ways in which fagles’ translation of the iliad is superior to lattimore’s. (yeah, i don’t know who likes richard’s bloodless verse better, either.)

case in point: on a recent monday evening, in one of my writing courses, the instructor asked the class whether anything interesting or weird had happened over the weekend. it was part in conversation, part to begin a writing exercise. the room full of (ostensibly perceptive) would-be writers was largely silent, including myself. which was unexpected. especially because what i should have said was “well, a building on my block was on fire saturday night”—it being both a true statement, and one that seems, in retrospect, f*cking perfect for that sort of situation.

in the immortal words of sam beckett (no—the other one) here, now, is my attempt to right what once was wrong:

wafting through my studio apartment around midnight on an unseasonably warm fall evening was the smell of expiring wood. awoken by this unexpected scent, my first response was one of mild, slothful panic. if i had truly been in danger, an alarm of some sort would be screeching, a primitive survival instinct would be pulsing adrenaline through my veins. i couldn’t be bothered to investigate, only idly wonder whether i would inhale sufficient smoke to kill me if i attempted to sleep through it. i was tired, and theoretical dire circumstances could surely wait.

while i tossed and turned in bed, pondering whether the mysterious aroma was more like a pungent, but distant campfire or the resulting bouquet of a subterranean gas explosion, a crowd of voices gathered beneath my second story window. when their indistinct chatter was overcome by a chorus of sirens, i reluctantly decided to become worried.

sheets, shed; specs, bedecked. shorts, off; jeans, on. keys, clutched; dog, comforted. if i must be forced to reckon with potential ruin, so be it. but i’m pulling on my sox cap before i go.

i stumbled awkwardly, like a drunk, down the stairs to the front door of my building. outside, around the small stoop, several small groups had huddled here and there, horror utterly absent from their coteries. they did seem to be subtly inching southward, though.

a vague haziness hung in the air, emanating from no obvious source, but clearly getting thicker down at the end of the block. people were mindlessly shuffling in that direction, like sedated zombies, sated of their blood lust. something was pulling them, and me, toward the far corner. something was burning, and our collective curiosity would not be denied.

except by policemen with magic yellow tape. the two and a half inch wide band of plastic was unfurled before our eyes: from chainlink to tree trunk to patrol car to parked car, blocking the entire breadth of our avenue. and it’s sorcery worked. no great warriors, nor impressive display of weaponry was needed to hold back the growing masses. just paper-thin ribbon.

a few firemen loitered about, their lack of urgency not lost upon us. perhaps something thrilling or devious had happened. it may have even been followed by astounding heroics. but if there was a culprit, my neighbors and i were too late to catch him; if there was a hero, we were too late to offer our applause. there was nothing to see here, nothing to do.

the surprise block party dispersed nearly as quickly as it had assembled. we returned to our homes, the event already fading in memory, and when we passed by one another the next day, we did not speak of it.