#6

Of course, no one wanted it to be a complete disaster. But when a series of fire trucks pulled up with their lights flashing in front of the house on the corner, more than one neighbor peeking out of kitchen curtains entertained, for the briefest of moments, an image of the house lying in a heap of ashes. A house and its inhabitants who had been plaguing the block for years erased within moments. A thought too tempting not to think. So no one thought it, not really, not for more than a millisecond. It was soon clear that there was no smoke and no flames, and the neighbors knew that if there were, they would need to worry about their own property being damaged by proximity. So the curtains remained closed and the house on the corner remained standing, and the neighbors remained wondering what those jerks on the corner had done to rile up a fleet of fire trucks on a Thursday morning.