There's A Fire In Brooklyn

My mind plays tricks on me and I don’t know how to stop it. No, not the kinds of tricks that make me see things. At least not things in the present tense.

Yesterday afternoon I was hung out with a dear friend of mine in Brooklyn Bridge Park. We discussed a wide array of topics and it was a genuinely enjoyable experience. I was having a good time, but then came the helicopters and with them confirmation of abject misery. Of course, anyone that has visited Brooklyn Bridge Park will agree that its noisy, and most of its noise comes from a near constant overhead barrage of “thwap thwap thwap” of whirring helicopter blades. I would hypothesize that these mosquito-like machines serve a variety of different functions to the daily life of the tri-state area: wealthy wall street investors on their way to Laguardia or JFK; tourists intent upon taking in the sights of the city; the Coast Guard looking for the odd yacht in distress; the local (and perhaps national, if things get really bad) news rushing to the scene of a five alarm fire on (name of street redacted) in Brooklyn. My mind went immediately to this last option because my mind plays tricks on me and wants me to be miserable.

I was off yesterday and so I had risen late because I am (thankfully) finding it more and more enjoyable to sleep in. Maybe not “sleep,” but rather lay in bed and listen to WNYC on my iPhone 5S. (I have a radio but listening to the radio over the internet seems easier.) It was therefore close to 11:30am when I finally found my way to my desk. I was going to write morning pages (thanks, Julia Cameron) and thought it might be nice to light the scented candle that I had purchased one malaise-filled Sunday afternoon at the Target in downtown Brooklyn. I lit it. I wrote. It was pleasant, if not a little bit sickly scented. It began to get warm in my apartment, and so I took off my Patagonia jacket. I finished the pages and took a shower. I left my apartment at around 1:30pm and texted my friend that I was sorry but I was running late. It was raining and I did not have an umbrella.

I got to the restaurant and the thought hit me in the face and it would not go away and I could not stop thinking about it no matter how sure I was it wasn’t true: did I blow out the candle?

“Seriously, did I? I think I did. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did. It got warmer in the apartment and the smell was overwhelming, so I blew it out. But maybe I only took off my Patagonia jacket. Maybe I didn’t blow it out. I would have noticed it when I drew the curtains in my bedroom right before leaving. I would have noticed that little flicker of light and I would have blown it out. I would have done that. I’m not an idiot. This is just your anxiety talking, Scott. Giving in to your anxiety will only make the thoughts worse the next time around. There will be a next time around. Remember that day that you spent watching the news at work. It had rained the night before. You left your window open. The water seeped in and when you woke up to your soaked, heavy shades pulling your curtain rod down, none of the lights in your apartment would come on. You apologized to your sleepy roommate and said that you would fix the problem when you came back home.

“You watched the news intently all day, sure, after the next commercial break, they would pop back in to tell you about a five-alarm fire in Bushwick. All day, nothing. Maybe there were bigger news stories overshadowing your burned out home. On the way home you looked out the window of the M for the plume of smoke. Maybe the FDNY had already put it out. If there was no fire anymore, there’d of course be no more smoke. You rounded the corner of Irving Ave to see your apartment building still standing. You flipped the circuit breaker and the lights came back on. You celebrated with a Heineken from the local bodega. You don’t really like Heineken but it hit the spot.

“That’s what this is. All is well. You. Are. Fine.”

I wanted to be present and be with my friend, but I could not focus because the moment I finally got my mind off of the image of the candle, and on to other things, the fucking candle would be back again, its flames licking my bedroom wall, and again I would become lost in sirens and smoke and the urgent text from my landlord’s daughter telling me that the building was on fire and that the fire started in my apartment. In my bedroom. “The fucking lease says no candles!” It would be millions of dollars in damages when I was ultimately found to be at fault. My life would be over. Done. Might as well give up now.

Finding oneself trapped in an anxiety spiral is painful enough without when you are by yourself. It is ten times more painful when you are with someone. I like to believe (my therapist reminds me that I am often wrong) that I know what people are thinking, and I could see the thoughts clear as day in my friend’s mind: “Why is Scott acting so weird? What’s wrong? He must just be weird. I don’t want to hang out with him anymore. I’m going to find a way to nicely leave.” I know that these thoughts (like the towering inferno that was my apartment building) are wrong but anxiety has a way of breeding anxiety and once I get going I find it nearly impossible to stop. I did think about telling my friend what was going on in my head, but that would have lead to her either imploring me to just stop thinking about it (Therapist: “You think too much, Scott!”) or to cut our hang out short and to let me go back to my apartment to make sure. I didn’t tell her. I continued hanging out. But I still feel bad. I feel like I let her down.

I did feel better eventually but that was only after I walked around the corner of (name of street redacted) and (name of street redacted) and saw my apartment building very much intact and very much not on fire. Even then I was not completely satisfied, As I walked in through the front door, I told myself that I smelled smoke. I could hear water running somewhere. Maybe someone was taking a shower but perhaps the sprinklers on my floor were going off. Maybe the candle had just now burned long enough to reach my curtains. Maybe when I got to the very next landing I would encounter a cascade of water and then, finally, my life would be over.

That’s it. I like the smell of the scented candle that I bought at Target. I’m going to light it again. Don’t worry, though. I’ll be sure and blow it out.