I lay down, tucked into my bed, with a friend on the phone.
I'd planned to sleep after a little more conversation.
Sirens, sirens, not unusual, but sirens, more sirens, and I
realize something big may be happening. They sound as
though they may be South of me, so I extricate my limbs from
the bedcovers and climb the creaky stairs to look out the
third floor window at the back of the house. I see an eerie
green glow in some sort of mist, but that doesn't seem to be
the big thing. ("Copper," my phone friend warns, "Don't
breathe that." "It's a few blocks away," I reply, "and I
don't know whether it's really green or merely green-lit.")
Then I notice, a little further West of that, where the
nearby buildings are taller and obscure my view, a plume of
smoke. It rises, hits some sort of temperature inversion or
something (there are flat clouds in a sheet higher still),
and extends dense, plump, and blunt-tipped to the East
across the sky, not too much higher than my own vantage
point. It is, more than anything, a giant and
disproportionately long tongue, being stuck out of the mouth
of West Baltimore, reeeeaching out to try to lick the nipple
of the B&O Railroad Museum. A short time later, West
Baltimore's smoke tongue is trying to French-kiss the Inner
Harbour or tickle the ear of downtown.
I see no flames higher than the rooftops, but the tongue is
impressive. After a quick peek out a front window, just in
time to see a news van blur past at twice the speed limit, I
look out the back again and the tongue has become an arrow,
or a ramp, or a slash across the sky, brightly lit from
beneath at the Eastern, downtown end, more subtle and sneaky
against the night sky in the poor section of town where it
originates. Distances are deceptive, but the fire is
definitely in my part of town. It looks like it's between
one and four blocks West of me, and I don't have as clear an
idea of how far South. Perhaps five or six blocks, perhaps
a dozen or more.
I turn on the television in case there is a news report on,
and find Warren Zevon instead, a fascinating juxtaposition.
I recognize his voice and lyrical style before I recognize
his face; I do not know the song.
The sirens have stopped for the moment, though there must be
a score or so of fire trucks at the scene by now based on
the sirens I heard earlier.
I wonder what's burning this time.
===============================================================
I finished writing that at five minutes to two AM (Eastern
daylight-savings time) and posted it elsewhere. At this
point (just after three AM), the long tongue of smoke has
either dissipated or drifted out over the Chesapeake Bay,
the eerie green mist has vanished, and there doesn't seem
to be any more smoke being generated. I did attempt to
photograph that interesting-looking smoke formation, but
it was kind of low-contrast against the night sky, so I
don't know how well it'll show on film. I did toy with
the idea of throwing on some clothes and tossing a camera
in the car to go photograph the firefighters in action,
but it's probably just as well that I didn't -- it looks
like all the visually interesting action would have been
winding down by the time I could have done so. If any of
the smoke photos come out, I'll put 'em where y'all can
see 'em.
Still being really busy with the same project I was working
on a few weeks ago, only now it's more difficult because
I'm physically worn out. (For the record, fibromyalgia
sucks. It sucks worse when one fails to pace oneself at
a sustainable level and triggers a flare.)
While I still don't know exactly where the fire was, it
was far enough away to not present any real danger to me,
for which I'm glad. Here's hoping it was another warehouse
or something, and not homes.
-- Glenn
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