Think of your bedroom-- the place where you pay or someone more responsible than you pays to sleep most nights. Imagine this room of yours to be on the second floor. Then picture flames at the base of that staircase, yellow tongues licking the bannister in an ominous ascension. You, of course, are in your room when this is happening. The smell of the smoke wakes you from a shallow sleep. In the brief time that you have to escape you think of five things within your four walls that you value most. These items are the only things that you'll have time to fling through your window before climbing through it and down a fire escape. If you don't live in an urban area then assume that the ground is covered with two feet of snow, enough of a layer to cushion your fall. The snow is not important, though. Neither is that steel ladder. It's the fire you've got to worry about. It's coming, and it's coming fast.
Aside from yourself, what will you choose to save? Your wallet filled with various plastic cards establishing your identity, priveleges and credit history? Some photographs of people you miss and may never see again? A record collection that listens like a chronological timeline of your brief and meaningless existence? Life-changing books filled with underlined passages and notes in the margins? A pet whose gruesome death you don't want on your conscience? A marble notebook or leatherbound journal laden with things you were too ashamed to tell anyone else? A heartfelt letter that almost had you convinced that the race is not so doomed and people may actually care about more than themselves? A suit or a dress that you'll never fit into again but keep for nostalgic reasons? Hurry! Think! What matters most?
I've looked around my room tonight. I'd let it all burn.
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