FIRE ALARM

At 2am in the morning, I was awoken by a heavy and loud fire alarm from my flat, which completely disrupted my blissful rest. I sprang up, instinctively holding my chest. My heart was pounding hard. Without thinking, I threw on a black polo, grabbed my cat and quickly rushed outside wearing only shorts to find out what was happening. As I quickly climbed down the stairs, I couldn't help but see Mr Rogers, my neighbor, from a mile away coming out hurriedly from his apartment coughing seriously. All covered in smoke.

My brain went into overdrive. I quickly paused in my tracks and called the fire services before things could escalate out of hand.

Meanwhile, my other neighbors, Mama Chibuzor and Mr Godwin, were already outside, in the cool of the night, still dressed in their nightwear, also running towards the source of the fire alarm. Seemed like they had heard the fire alarm too, I thought to myself. As I got closer, I noticed Mr Godwin was already positioning the long water hose in one hand, ready to quench the fire. While Mama Chibuzor was holding a fire extinguisher.

“You heard that too” they both asked me as I caught up to them.

“Yes ooo, I heard it.” I just hope we are not too late”, I replied.

Soon enough, we got to Mr Rogers' apartment. Thick black smoke continued to pour out of the apartment, yet Mr. Rogers was missing. As panic surged within us, we quickly sprang into action. I kicked open the door, and immediately, Mr Godwin turned on the hose and let the water rush out at full force. Meanwhile, mama Chibuzor turned on the fire extinguisher all at once.

“Jesus!! “ Mr Rogers exclaimed loudly as the water hit him directly, effectively soaking him.

When we were sure any susceptible fire had been quenched to some extent, we turned it off to see an irritated Rogers staring down at us.

“Would one of you care to explain why you would barge into my house and baptize me with water?” he said angrily, his two hands folded across his chest.

“We thought there was a fire,” we said in chorus, staring at him.

Mr Rogers, oblivious to the fire alarm that tripped off earlier, kept staring at us like we were idiots.

“And what would make you think that?” he asked in a harsh tone.

“The fire alarm” I answered.

“The heavy smoke coming out of your house”, Mama Chibuzor added.

“The manner in which you rushed out coughing, covered in smoke”, Mr Godwin also said.

He suddenly realized that he may have caused a false alarm. The minute he was going to speak up, the fire truck stopped in front of his house with sirens blaring. The firefighters jumped out of the truck dressed and ready, and prepared to wheel fire hose after fire hose out of the truck.

Mr Rogers watched in horror.

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"Who called the fire department?" he said out loud, looking at the three of us.

I couldn't help but lower my head and smile. Obviously, I had gone too far to call the fire service. Mr Rogers took a deep breath as the chief captain approached us.

“We were informed there was a fire on the 23-block estate”. He spoke with authority, his eyes scanning the area for any fire.

Mr Rogers saw the chief's face scrunch up in confusion as to where the fire was, and quickly interjected,

“I'm sorry sir, it seems this was a false alarm” he started.

“My neighbors here mistook my experiments for a fire outbreak and hurriedly called you up without confirmation if there was indeed a fire. "I apologize for the troubles” he finished.

“ And what experiments would that be?” we all suddenly asked, our curious eyes staring expectantly at Mr Rogers.

At that point, Mr Rogers blushed a deep red and began to scratch his head and stammer.

“Well…well I, um, recently decided to take a leaf out of Mr. Chef's book and practice some of his famous dishes he usually does on television. "Turns out it's a lot harder than I thought,“ he said, looking away.

“Wait oo, you mean all this while you were just trying to practice how to cook like Mr Chef in that TV show” Mama Chibuzor spoke first, surprise written all over her face.

“You that can hardly cook a proper meal without asking for my help every Saturday”, she continued,

We all burst out laughing at that. At this point, Mr. Rogers had blushed a deep red, feeling very embarrassed.

“Well, I thought I could learn one or two from him,” he said meekly.

“ You have to crawl before you can learn how to walk, baby step at a time, young man” the chief spoke, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Indeed oo” we all concurred with him.

“Alright, I think we're done here. Young man, please be careful next time” he said as he got back into the fire truck and drove out.