A Fire
It was twilight time. I was watching television in my house
when I heard an explosion. More followed. So I went outside to see what the
matter was.
A column of dark billowing smoke told me the story. There
was a fire raging a short distance away.
I got onto my bicycle and pedalled in the direction of the
smoke. A couple of kilometres later I came upon the fire. It was a row of
motor-workshops and they were burning furiously.
The police and fire department had already cordoned off the area. I watched
from a distance. A crowd had already gathered and we gaped with amazement at the
spectacle presented by the burning shops.
The fire rose to about twenty metres and it lit up the whole
area even though the sky was already dark. The firemen desperately sprayed
streams of water into the fire to control it. Now and then explosions can be
heard as gas cylinders blew up in the intense heat.
For more than an hour the fire raged. I could see anxious
people trying to get near the workshops only to be held back by the police.
They were obviously the shop-owners trying to save their shops. Actually they
could do nothing but wait for the fire to be extinguished.
Finally the blaze died down and darkness enveloped us. The
workshops were totally razed. Only red-hot embers remained where they once stood. The crowd thinned and
I too got onto my bicycle and cycled home.
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