An Unforgettable Experience Eleven fifteen. The night was dark and humid.

The air was tinged with excitement. People were talking, muttering, shouting. The only lights that were seen were flashlights and candle lights. Slowly, one by one, the cars revved up and more lights shone to light up the place. A blackout had occurred. But that was not our only problem. The building right in front of my house was on fire. We stood in awe: my brother and I, watching the flames lick the building. It seemed so unnaturally fast, the flashes of red, yellow, and orange. The fire lit up the faces of gazing people in its unnatural orange light. Unnatural-that was the word. It did not seem natural that on the very day the electricity got cut, the very night our town was plunged into darkness, the very day shooting stars appeared brighter than usual, that the tallest building in town caught fire. The firemen had come to the rescue, and they were busy trying to hose down the flickering flames. Trying but not succeeding. Even though I was no professional in judging, I knew that there was no hope in rescuing the building. The fire was too wild, too uncontrollable. It was going to lick the place clean. They had come too late. But I suppose it was their job to try. And I knew that the next day, all that would be in front of us was a black empty shell of what it once used to be. I watched silently, entranced by the beautiful colours that formed patterns that changed with each second that passed. It was beautiful and graceful, yet monstrous and dangerous. It baffled me why nature had created such a thing that contradicted itself.