It's Like A Panic Attack, But It Happens Every Night

When I was a child, I would often lay awake in
bed for hours, worrying that the house would catch fire
while I slept. I was certain it could happen at any time.
I'd just stare at the ceiling in anxious terror, sniffing
for smoke. To calm myself I'd plan again and again how I
would leap from bed, wake my family, and get them and the
cats out of the house. But as the years passed, and my
house didn't burn down, and home invaders didn't kill us
all in our beds, and I didn't die of a sudden and brutal
attack of the mouse-feces-borne Hanta virus, I learned to
control my fears. I came to recognize the chemical
irrationality of my anxiety, and when I couldn't ignore it,
at least push it into the realm of fiction and get some
sleep. So therefore I was sleeping quite soundly when that
ampliphier caught fire in the living room and filled the
house with acrid yellow smoke. It was burning for at least
an hour before I became truly cogniscent of what was going
on and lept from bed, shouted Harry awake, and carried the
two cats to safety. The moral of this story: All your
childhood fears were spot on.