tonight the fire alarm went off in my apartment and everyone came down to the lobby. there were at least 60 people and everyones energy seemed to be steadily increasing. people were talking to each other about the fire alarm going off and what could have caused it. the firemen that came split into two groups; one went to the 19th floor to check on the problem and the other group stood in a circle in the center of the lobby and talked about tim hortons

an elderly man approached me and asked me what was new. i instinctively started laughing and he walked over to the people next to me. i felt bad but i also didn’t care because he seemed like he had alzheimer and would forget about it momentarily. he asked the people next to me what was new also. after ~6 minutes the fire alarm was turned off and there was a collective audible ‘sigh’ followed by a chuckle from everyone in the lobby

while walking up the stairs to my apartment a noise similar to a fork scraping a saucepan played on the intercom with ~10 seconds of silence. then a fireman spoke and said “hey folks, i’m with the toronto fire investigation and it turns out to be a false alarm. you can all go back to your activities now.”

i tripped on the stairs while passing the 7th floor