I was in a friend’s fifth-floor flat when the place went up in flames. Suddenly I understood my mortality and what I was prepared to do to save myself
When my friend Jonathan heard the crash of breaking glass that night in 2008, he thought it was drunks flinging bottles on Leith Walk in Edinburgh. They did that a lot, although they must have been rowdier than usual, as it was loud. It took him a few minutes to understand what was actually happening – and in that time the stairwell to his fifth-floor flat became entirely impassable. That crash was the sound of the downstairs windows exploding – glass shattering under the obscene heat of the burning apartment below us.
As for me, I was sitting with Jonathan’s wife, Ericka, in the other room, distracted by wine and chatting nonsense. The first I knew anything was wrong was when Jonathan appeared in the doorway. “I don’t mean to worry you,” he said. “But we need to go.” I flapped around, trying to locate my shoes. “No,” he clarified. “We need to go now.”
