Essay: Bloomfield house fire liberates compassion

It's the height of a rude awakening. Nocturnal disorder. Bewilderment follows. Intense heat and light. Your mind is muddled. Consciousness eludes you, and you want to dissolve back into the serenity of sleep and a cool pillow. But you can't. The heat, the light ... something's wrong.

It's the eve of All Hallows Eve. Just outside the fated Maple Street address, Michael Myers, a fictional character from the "Halloween" series of slasher films, stands ready for trick-or-treaters. Under the streetlights, Michael cuts a foreboding figure, a harbinger of things to come, his iconic slasher's instrument held low by his side. Upward of 6 feet tall, Michael stands stock-still in an unsettling tangle of shadows cast by the barren, wide-spreading limbs of a chestnut tree. It's all so movie-esque -- and frightening. Michael's disturbing presence has been drawing attention for the past week or so, his evil disposition undeterred by the night's chilling October rain.

In the next moment, Michael is jarred from prominence, something more disturbing unfolding nearby, another aspect of malevolence, another face of evil. In quick succession, a fire hydrant is ripped from its mooring, a concrete retaining wall is partially destroyed and a telephone pole is snapped in two. Undeterred, momentum carries the intruder through the air, its last act of maleficence, to sever a natural gas line as it defies gravity and sails into a sleeping home. From the standpoint of violence, it couldn't have been more neatly choreographed, four quickly succeeding collisions ripping the night air. And the "nightmare," a stone's throw from Elm Street, has begun.

Inside the home, the struggle to survive is in its first fledgling moments. You've been thrown from your bed to the upright position and pinned against the wall. You think No! No! No! This can't be. Your thoughts are fragmented. Your wife! Your daughter! Why can't I move? Heat and flames intensify. Parts of the ceiling are falling, glowing embers floating around you. Your mind races. Smoke. Black as pitch, it forms above you; it's building downward toward you.

Your wife struggles to her feet. Like you, she struggles for understanding. The ceiling has been falling on her a piece at a time. She thinks her hair might burst into flames at any moment. Realization propels her into the bedroom's alcove, one side of her face already reddened by the intense heat.

Inside her crib, their 2-year-old sits in an upright daze, taking in the spectacle -- one can only imagine the goings on in her young, impressionable mind, or what might manifest itself 10 years from now. She's swept up by her panic-stricken mother.

Overwhelmed by the drama of conflagration and wildly unthinking behavior, they converge on each other's shouts. Barefooted -- the hounds of certain death at their heels -- they make a miraculous escape, out of the house and out into the cold October rain.

A community reaches out. People literally stepping out of the darkness, ready to assist in any way possible, good Samaritans drawn out of their cocoons: the driver of the burning vehicle is pulled to safety; police, volunteer firefighters and Red Cross members respond in turn; a neighbor appears with coats and footwear; a complete stranger steps forward with a $100 bill.

In the ensuing days, compassion is embraced, so much so that you would have thought the givers were the receivers. People giddy with giving, some innate thirst quenched, coming to the aid of others a liberating experience. Whatever the feeling, it was blooming in Bloomfield and beyond the limits of the town, beyond even the limits of generosity -- if such is possible. If this spike in do-unto-others isn't evidence that evil is self-defeating, I don't know what is.

Evil encountered is about as ingratiating as a bag of manure dropped in your lap. A bit uncultured, but an apt assessment. When foul-smelling livestock excreta are broadcast over the fields, a stronger, healthier crop results. In similar fashion, evil, when disseminated, inadvertently produces a result far removed from its criminal intent. This assessment also satisfies my questioning of God's willingness to allow bad things to happen -- it gets positive results.

Donald E. Melville, author and regular contributor to Messenger Post Media, resides in Honeoye. He welcomes your comments at [email protected].

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