WChicken is my friend In 2008, Jonathan thought he was drunk and throwing bottles on Leith Walk when he heard the crash in 2008. Edinburgh. They made a lot of it, even though it should have been more rowdy than usual because it was loud. It took him a few minutes to understand what was really happening – at which point his fifth-floor staircase was completely impossible. The crash was the sound of glass shattering under the obscene heat of the burning apartment below us – windows exploding below.
As for me, I was in the other room with Jonathan's wife, Erika, distracted by alcohol and chatting inanely. I first knew something was wrong when Jonathan showed up at the door. “I don't want to worry you,” he said. “But we must go.” I tried to find my shoes. “No,” he clarified. “We have to go Now.“
We pulled ourselves together, barefoot and laughing, and followed him. In fact, my first feeling was excitement. I've always had a soft spot for a crisis; My favorite tarot card is the Tower – foreshadowing your foundations being swept away from below and falling bodies and lightning filling the sky.
But the moment we opened the front door, I realized this was not going to be a happy adventure. Up the stairs was a wall of thick black smoke and the air was already warm. We retreated and slammed the door. It felt like someone had made a terrible mistake. Those stairs are the exit – our only way out. It doesn't mean we can't use them.
However, I watched the BBC documentary 999 as a child and enjoyed re-enactments of its dramatic emergency calls. I could hear Michael Burke's gravelly notes in my head: “Soak the towel in the bath, insert the gap under the door..” We did it and it was like trying to dam a river with tree branches. Smoke came out everywhere: through the floorboards, the skirting, the walls.
The strange thing was that the room turned black. Whenever I imagined a house fire, I pictured the coughing, the heat, the back of my hand checking the heat of each door. But this swadddling is never dark.
At this point, we had to decide where to go. In the kitchen, a window was wide open. But it faced the back garden, which was walled off to any fire engines, and, with no ladders, an escape route from an upstairs window was impossible. In the living room, for reasons known only to Edinburgh landlords, the only openable window is a small PVC above head height. A wooden plank was balanced on A-frames on a table in front of the window. But if we stand on it, we can attract attention; Someone knows we're stuck inside. Down in the street, a crowd had already gathered.
Pressing against the glass, we orally gulped fresh air through the window in moments when the wind conspired to drive out the flames licking from below. But then the wind changed and the thick smoke outside turned towards us and was every bit as inhaled as the air inside.
The situation caused some kind of disorder in my brain. I was in my 20's and up until this point I believed I was immortal. But in that moment, I suddenly understood that this bundle of meat – a body with all the desires and allures and subtleties that make a Jane – could be prevented from existing. I really don't want that to happen. I will do anything to prevent that from happening.
I was ready to brace myself through that impossible window and jump from the top floor – break my legs if necessary – to live, breathe, and exist. But in the end I didn't have to. The fire brigade arrived; They brought an extendable ladder and invited us in as they broke the glass. It seemed to take a very long time, but eventually we were allowed to go into the night to the waiting ambulances. We were taken to the hospital where we were treated for smoke inhalation and then released. We were basically fine.
Since that night, fire enters all my fiction: buildings tend to catch fire, there are ritual fires and bonfires. Freakslaw, my first novel, focuses on fire as a force of rebirth and revolution, and as a vehicle of destruction.
On camping trips, I am the keeper of the flames – stoking them, tending them, and in doing so can claim some kind of control over an impossible force. Of course I know I can't. Fire is stronger than me, death is stronger than me, and at least one of them will get me in the end.
Freakslaw by Jane Flett (double day, £16.99) is out now. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
