The Fire

Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Data retrieved from:
Smart Lights
Max wants a way back into the building, but the front door is locked. He goes around back, but the side door—sheet metal, aluminum maybe—is locked also. 
        The handle is cold to the touch. Sirens in the distance growing nearer. There’s the moon in the morning. Seems to be listening, Max thinks. Seems to be on my movements. Shake it off, man. He slides past the bushes, which empty their water on the back of his coat, and makes his way between the dumpsters to the back exit. Also locked. Doors to buildings open out. Doors to rooms open in. But this back exit seems to open inward. A light goes on in a flat on the second floor and then it shuts off just as quickly. Max holds his breath. A window. A grate. Should I wait for somebody to come out and see if I can’t slip past them inside?
        He looks at his watch. It’s 5:02am. He knows that he still smells of vodka and smoke. His mouth tastes of ash. His hands are cold. His nose is red. The sirens are upon the front of the building and when he peeks around the corner, a firetruck is there. If someone’s flat is on fire, he’ll make his way in with the firemen. What are they gonna do, card him? He heads back around the side of the building feeling the brickwork along the way and then stops short.
        The firetruck is waiting there. An ambulance rolls up behind the truck, but nothing seems to be happening. It’s still dark, though the sky is starting to bruise with morning light. It’s too cold for May, he thinks. But his heart is starting to race. A paramedic gets out of the ambulance and walks up to the front of the firetruck. A fireman rolls down his window. They say something to one another that Max can’t hear. 
        The medic turns, looks at the front of the building, and then reaches to his breast pocket to remove a pack of cigarettes. What the fuck, Max thinks, is going on? Is it an emergency or not? The porch light over the entryway is still lit. He never thought of it before, but it must be on some kind of timer. The medic is smoking. The firetruck shuts its engine off. Max needs to get inside before he’s found out. Had somebody called them on him
        Impossible, he thinks. Impossible. Unless Harry….? No way. Max decides to ask the medic what’s going on, but doesn’t want to get to close. He comes all the way out and the medic takes his cigarette out of his mouth.
        —You pranked us?
        —What?
        —You called for us when it was nothing?
        —I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just came out to see what was going on.
        The door of the firetruck opens and a fireman steps out. He’s got on full regalia, ready for flames, minus his hat. He looks Max over, head to toe, sneers and then turns to the medic.
        —This the joker?
        —Nah, he’s a fucking waster.
        They share a laugh. Max puts his hands up, like what the hell did I ever do?
        —You live in those bushes?
        —No, I just came by to pick something up.
        —Sure you did.
        The fireman leans against the truck, folds his arms. The medic smokes and looks at the wet street with a kind of weary affectation.
        —What was the call?
        —Somebody said the building was engulfed in flames.
        —Maybe it’s the wrong address?
        —Maybe you should mind your own fucking business.
        Max doesn’t look homeless does he? I mean, it’s been a rough few weeks, but he can’t figure out why they’re speaking to him like this.
        —Run along now, pal.
        —I live here.
        —Sure you do.
        —I lost my keys. Actually they were stolen.
        The medic throws down his cigarette and the fireman shrugs. The door to the building opens and woman emerges partway. She’s wearing a long terrycloth robe. She gathers the fabric at her throat.
        —Are you coming in or not?
        Max has never seen her before, but her voice is familiar somehow.
        —We had a call that—
        —I know what the call was. I made it myself.
        The fireman’s demeanor changes. Another firefighter and two other medics exit their vehicles and join them on the street, where they’re now five. They all wait at attention for her to say something else.
        —This way.
        They follow her inside and the last medic—a woman—holds the door for Max to follow them into the building.
        —I live here, he says. I just lost my keys.
        The medic says nothing to him, and Max watches as the six of them proceed past the mailboxes and up the stairs. It’s a great commotion, but nobody is saying a word now.
        Max is inside. He’s made it in. He doesn’t know what all that was about, but relief floods through him. He’s back. No key to his flat, but he’ll have to wake up Harry or Beth. At least it’s morning. 
        Max heads up the stairs and sees that the three medics and two firefighters are standing outside his apartment door. The woman in the robe has her door on the handle.
        Max opens his mouth to say something, but stops himself.
        —It’s very strange, the woman says.
        —I’m sure it’s alright if you managed to put it out.
        —No, she says, it’s…everything.
        She opens the door and then stands aside. There’s a gasp. Somebody whistles. More talking, but Max can’t make it out as they all file into his apartment. 
        The woman in the robe looks at him down the hall, and Max just stands there.
        —Who are you?
        —I lost my keys, so I just came in with them. What happened?
        —See for yourself.
        The woman in the robe doesn’t seem upset. She seems tired. Irritated maybe, but if there’s been some fire she’d managed to put out, she doesn’t seem at all flustered by it.
        —I…okay.
        Max wants to tell her that he lives there, that it’s his apartment, but decides he can’t do this since he’s vanished two weeks ago, skipping out on rent, having taken all the money out of Harry’s wallet. He has to assume that this woman is Harry’s girlfriend? He doesn’t know. He’s not thinking clearly.
        Max heads down the hall toward his door. He can see the medics and firefighters standing inside. But there’s nothing beyond them.
        —It’s been gutted, the woman says.
        —I don’t understand…
        Max steps inside and everything’s the same—same sofa, same television, same kitchen—only the walls are made of glass. The flat’s become a transparent cube.
        —Look what the cat dragged in, Harry says.
        He’s standing on the kitchen’s glass floor, in a t-shirt and sweats. 
        —Hey, Harry, I’m—
        Harry waves this off, like never mind. The medics and firefighters are all looking around the apartment, or rather through the apartment to the pipes and wires beyond the glass partitions. If you get close enough—and can see past the plumbing and ventilation systems housed within—you can plainly see into all the other apartments: one on either side, one above, and one below as well.
        —This wasn’t no fire.
        —No shit.
        —What the fuck is this?
        The female medic places her bare hand on the glass. It seems normal. Everything’s normal, only the entire apartment is made of glass. 
        The nameless woman in the robe has come back into the apartment and said the dispatcher didn’t believe her, so she lied and said everything was on fire.
        —I just told her that so she’d send somebody. I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry.
        Nobody seems to notice or care. The three medics and two firefighters are dumbstruck, looking around, peering through the wires and pipes into the other apartments all around them.
        Max just stands there and watches them.
        —Glass…
        —You can see everything.
        A light flips on above and everybody looks up through the ceiling to see somebody step into the main room of their apartment on the next floor up. Bare feet. There’s a cry. And the light goes out.


The Fire

About the Author

Born and raised in Seattle, Joshua Marie Wilkinson is the author of several books of poetry as well as Trouble Finds You, a novel due out next year. His writing has appeared in Tin House, Pen America, Poetry, The Believer, and in more than a dozen anthologies. He's taught in MFA programs in Chicago and Tucson, and abroad in Italy, Slovakia, and Turkey. In 2019 he was the Writer-in-Residence at Rhodes University in South Africa. He lives in Seattle with the writer Lisa Wells and their son Jude. Currently, he teaches at Hugo House and is training to become a psychotherapist.

Website

About the Data

This story was inspired by data produced by 16 different Phillips Hue light groups. The groups had names such as "Dining room," "Downstairs," "Barista," "Office," and "Hallway." Since there was no straightforward way to log the lights' state in a continuous manner, the participant had to develop their own Python script to query the lights states every hour of every day for one month, from November 8 to December 9, 2022. That's 11,520 data points.

Writing Prompt

In this story, we proposed that the writer reflects on how data is translated. From home to machine to writer and back to home, data transformations are invariably touched by humans (the inhabitants, the researcher, the writer). In this last volume of Data Epics, we encourage the writer to think about the human presence in meaning (and) making of data.

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Philips Hue Light

This graph shows the on and off states of the living room light between November 9 and December 8, 2021. This data used by the author to write this story.

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Philips Hue Light

This graph shows the on and off states of the office room light between November 9 and December 8, 2021. This data used by the author to write this story.

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Philips Hue Light

This graph shows the on and off states of the desk light between November 9 and December 8, 2021. This data used by the author to write this story.

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Philips Hue Light

This graph shows the on and off states of the kitchen light between November 9 and December 8, 2021. This data used by the author to write this story.

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"

I see data as little tips of the iceberg, you know, like a shadow that’s cast from something. ... I feel like [data] is fundamentally resistant to narrative and that's where all the tension came from… That there is no narrative or story or world to the data, in the same way that there isn’t with shadows. it's about uncovering what cast the shadow of data.

"

– A quote on process
from
Joshua Marie Wilkinson
.