Where there's smoke, there's fire.

The moon slipped slowly past its zenith. The dogs lay, curled in their particular posts. There was nothing at this time of night to warrant even canine attention. The refrigerator lay silent. The clock read 4:30 AM. And I slept.

You see, when I go to bed, I go to sleep. And I sleep until I wake up (or rather, the alarm wakes me up). And when I wake up, I get up. But right now, I'm sleeping... zzzz...

4:32AM.

4:34AM

4:35AM

I'm still sleeping. But, despite the appearances of perfect slumber and tranquility, something is bringing me to consciousness, even though I'm hardly aware of it.

Slowly, a thin, acrid scent filters through my nostrils.

Where there's smoke, as the saying goes, there's fire.

Instantly, I'm wide awake.

Instantly my smeller starts processing the noxious odour. It smells... electrical... and synthetic. Almost... like burning carpet, but not quite. I know what that smells like, because when I was three years old I thought I'd press the floor and make it look nice - with my mom's iron. However, when she called me, I jumped up and ran out, leaving it on the floor behind the chair. Well... a few minutes later we discovered what burning carpet smells like - and I still remember it. But this smells more like... polyvinylchloride, perhaps.

I jump out of bed and go to the door. But outside in the hall, the air is clean. I pause and sniff around, and go back into my room.

Phew. It certainly is still here. And getting stronger fairly quickly. I turn on the light, and glance around at all the outlets. The one under the desk has nothing plugged into it. The one by the bed has the alarm clock plugged into it and appears normal. But there's one more - behind the dresser. And on top of that dresser is the fishtank - full of water and rather heavy. And now I can hear an ominous hissing and crackling from behind it.

I heave the dresser and fishtank away from the wall, and there, the light cord for the aquarium is rapidly smoking away. I can't quite reach it, and sparks are flying out of it.

Seventeen years ago I had an unpleasant experience with faulty wiring, and I've had a bit of residual phobia of anything electrical that appears remotely unsafe. I was about four years old, and one afternoon took up the idea of organizing my dad's workspace. It was actually right here where I'm sitting in my office now, but at that time, there were no desks, no curtains, no carpet - it was just a concrete garage with a few machines in it, with extension cords snaked all over the floor, because, of course, there were no outlets wired yet.

And a four-year-old has a way of tripping over extension cords, so I was going to organize them. I picked them up off the floor, untangled them, took the loops and knots out, and routed them in a more orderly fashion. But I never finished the job.

Two cords were connected, and I picked it up to disconnect them. It was a heavy duty cord with a metal, grounded plug. Well, it was supposed to be grounded, but back in the outlet, some wires had shifted, and, no one knew it, but hot current was flowing through the ground line, and to that metal cap.

And the four-year-old boy, standing in stocking feet on a concrete floor, picked it up, and 120 volts of electricity began flowing through his right arm, down through his body, to his feet, to the floor.

I'll never forget the feeling. There was thunder in my ears, and the world spun around me, and the floor felt like it was violently quaking, as if I were being shaken like a rat in a dog's mouth.

And what was worse, was that the electricity flowing through my arm had entirely hijacked the control of my muscles, and caused my hand to uncontrollably grip the plug. I couldn't let go.

I don't know how long the ordeal lasted, but it lasted as long as it took my mother to hear some whimpering from the other side of the house, and get there, and yank the cord from the wall.

The Lord preserved my life and health, but the burns to my hand took months to heal, and I will carry the scars for the rest of my life. And ever since then, I hesitate to approach unprotected electricity.

So I heaved the dresser farther away from the wall, and tried to pull the plug. But the two probes were in the process of welding into the outlet. So I gripped the melting plug, and heaved it out.

The outlet was black with smoke, and the plug was partially melted. A few minutes more and the wallpaper would have caught fire.

I opened the window, and got up for the day.

And the rest of the family, slept.

So, one more occasion of God's protecting grace. And since I'm not fighting a house fire this morning, I'll sit down and write about it. :)

God bless you all this day, and protect you from all the unseen dangers and perils of this world!