Skip to main content

Fire Drill

They had a fire drill last night at around 1.30 a.m. The students were definately NOT pleased about it but the firemen sure were! I guess it was an opportunity to put all those practices into action. The silly thing is that only my block was involved; the other 3 escaped the whole unwanted drama. Crap! That's not a simulation of a real emergency. It's a controlled simulation and seriously, where is the danger in that?

Anyway, as soon as the alarms went off, they switched off the power supply and turned on the emergency lights. Everyone was evasperated and started making their way out of the hostel. What did I do? Well, I decided to stay in the room. My roommate decided to follow in my lead. So, we sat in the dark, quiet as 2 mice.

For the first 10 minutes, we could hear the the students thumping down the stairs. We closed the curtains and sat still on our beds. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. I motioned my roomate to be silent, my heart pounding faster, my mind assaulted with a million thoughts. Did they see us from the window? Did someone tell them that we were still in the room? Were they going to open the room with the spare key? Can I fit under the bed? Or maybe in the cupboard?
10 seconds later, we heard them knocking the next room door. A rountine check! What a relief! Come to think of it, why did they even bother to do that? Who would be dumb enough to open the door?

As we were sitting on our beds, my roomate suddenly whispered to me.

"Hey can you come and sit with me? It is so dark and I am scared."

I was dumbfounded. Obviously, she had no clue what it was like to be in pitch darkness. Anyway, I sat next to her and told her to calm down. She was still nervous and started coughing. Gosh! All I could say was "SHHHHH!!!!!". If this was WW2, the Gestapo would have probably found us and shot our heads. Since her bed was next to the door, I asked her to go and sit on my bed, which was at the corner of the room, quite a distance from the door.

Another 10 minutes passed and we heard boots thumping up the stairs and passing in front of our room. For that particular second, I understood how the Jews would have felt hiding from the Nazis. The thought of being found was suffocating to a point that you dare not move an inch for fear of making a noise that will give you away. What uncanny timing too because that was when my roomate had an uncontrollable fit of coughing. I gave her a bottle of water to drink but it was not effective. Then, I found a chewing gum and asked her to suck on it, to lessen her throat irritation. That worked well and we continued sitting silently for a couple of minutes.

Despite the loud alarms, I started dozing off after a while. So I asked my roomate if she would be okay to go back to her bed as I really want to sleep. She was sleepy herself and went back to her bed willingly, forgetting, much to my delight, her fear of the dark.

So there I was, until the whole thing was over, lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling, wondering when will they have it all done with.

Comments

cath said…
ROTFLMAO!!!!!
don't bully the juniors dino...you're supposed to be an example!
mEeRa said…
ROTFLMAO? What's that?

Popular posts from this blog

Cruel Cruel Fate

I cannot believe this! Why does fate have to be so cruel? Why! The first time I took this subject, the coursework was as such: Test 1 – 15% Test 2 – 15% Project – 10% Final Exam – 60% I did moderately well for the first test but I flunked the second one. As for the project, I had this sadistic lecturer who failed me without any valid reason. I tried to reason with him but it was pointless. I was so fed up as he would not even listen to any sound reason. How am I to plead my case if I am not even given a chance defend myself or make my point audible? He was so sloppy while marking the project and just rushed off to the next person without even properly ending the current presentation. It was all so confusing as nobody knew if their project was accepted or rejected. My presentation was on the last day, so you could very well imagine the chaos. The second time I took this subject, ...

Pride & Prejudice

Finally, Pride and Prejudice on the big screen! My all time favorite Jane Austen novel. No doubt that there would have been older remakes, both movies and dramas but a newer version is always welcomed. They have been other Austen movies on the big screen as well, namely, Emma, Sense & Sensibility and Mansfield Park. Personally, Emma was adapted well into a screenplay but Sense & Sensibility was a flop. The book itself, to begin with, lacked some personality and that impeccable Austen humour evident in her other books. Pride and Prejudice has a set of well developed characters especially the two main characters Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. There was a mini series in 1995 if I am not mistaken, with Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. He played the role superbly well, potraying Mr Darcy as a cold, insensitive and arrogant man. He is actually a pretty nice guy but only around his family and close friends. An encounter with Miss Bennet however, opened his eyes to the flaws ...