Complicated.

  My phone rings early, too early. My arm stumbles around looking for it, I miss the call. I walk downstairs to make coffee, Jesus it’s hot in the house, I click the AC up a few notches, my phone rings again, it’s my little brother. We speak briefly, my knees buckle, I hang up. I walk back upstairs minus the coffee, adrenaline fueling me. I smell smoke, I look out my bathroom window and see smoke, what the actual fuck. I have lived in this house in Laurel Canyon for eight years, this area never catches fire, as I have told my mom over 300 times when she sees a fire on the news that I was unaware of. I run out my bedroom doors still in my underwear , I see my neighbor, he and his wife own the coffee shop in the canyon forever, no one is having coffee today.  He’s also in his underwear, he’s on the roof with a garden hose. I don’t know what to do, I say “my dad is dead”, he doesn’t hear me, I say it again, nothing. I decide to sort of yell “my dad is dead”. He looks up at me, both of us in ill-fitting underwear in the heat, he says “I’m so sorry kiddo, this ones close, you need to get a hose” I nod in fake agreement. I wasn’t going to get a hose. I was going to get what was most important and leave. My most important was at a friend’s sleepover thank God. I walked in circles holding my broken coffee pot and my cat. It was like quicksand in there.