transfixed by stendhal syndrome
In the bits of news video that survive, all you can see is the smoke rolling out of the lobby doors. This is moments after the mural was unveiled. The firemen rush in and don’t come out. None of the police or guests come out. Every second of the time stamp on the video, the fire is bigger, the flames whipping orange rags out of the windows. A police officer crawls across the porch to peek in the window. He stoops there, looking inside. Then he stands. The smoke blowing him in the face, the flames blowtorching his clothes and hair, he steps over the windowsill. Not blinking. Not flinching. His face and hands on fire. The police officer smiles at what he sees inside and walks toward it without looking back.
The official story is the dining room fireplace caused it. The hotel’s policy that the fire had to burn, no matter how warm the weather, that’s how the fire started. People died a step away from open windows. Their dead bodies found an arm’s length away from exit doors. Dead, they were found creeping, crawling, crowding toward the wall in the dining room where the mural burned. Toward the center of the fire.
Whatever the policeman saw through the porch window.
No one even tried to escape.
Happy Birthday Jocelyn!
RIP Candice.
The official story is the dining room fireplace caused it. The hotel’s policy that the fire had to burn, no matter how warm the weather, that’s how the fire started. People died a step away from open windows. Their dead bodies found an arm’s length away from exit doors. Dead, they were found creeping, crawling, crowding toward the wall in the dining room where the mural burned. Toward the center of the fire.
Whatever the policeman saw through the porch window.
No one even tried to escape.
Happy Birthday Jocelyn!
RIP Candice.