my parents should not let me stay home alone because i'm going to start a fire in their fireplace and i'm not going to put it out before i go to sleep because it's going to look like it's already out. i'm going to close the chimney, and i'm going to go to bed, and while i'm falling asleep i'm going to think, "if i get carbon monoxide poisoned tonight, i'll have had a good run," and four hours later i'm going to hear an alarm in my dream, and it's going to go off once, then twice, and then a third time. i'm going to wake up, suspicious, and i'll open my eyes and wait for a fourth time, and i'll pray that there isn't a fourth, and that i was just having a dream about an alarm, it's not a real alarm, but how many times do you really have dreams about alarms, and then i'll smell the smoke and hear the fourth alarm, and i'll get out of bed, peek my head out my bedroom door, and see a nice blue little fire in the fireplace, and i'll see smoke hanging on the air, and the alarm will go off for the fifth time, but this time it'll say, "evacuate immediately, dangerous levels of carbon monoxide detected, call local law enforcement." so then i'll go into the kitchen and grab one of the empty milk bottles, and i'll open it, and i'll recoil cuz it'll smell like rotten milk, and i'll fill it at the sink and walk it over to the fire, trying not to breathe, and then i'll douse the fire, and i'll open up the chimney, and in the same swoop, i'll open the front door of the house, letting in some of the -10ºF air, and then i'll walk out the back door, and i'll look up, and when i do, i'll see all the stars, and they'll be so vivid that i'll have no choice but to stare. and then i'll walk into the garage and just stand around for a little bit, and then i'll ask the robot what it thinks i should do, and it'll say, "you do actually need to call the fire department," and i'll say, "but what if i don't?" and it'll say, "if the alarm has stopped, you can be in there safely." so i'll leave the garage, i'll stand in the -10ºF starry night, and i'll listen for the alarm and breathe in the clean air, and the alarm will have stopped before i've had a chance to get properly cold, and then i'll look at the stars one last time and realize there really is someone looking out for me. they didn't want me to call the fire department. they knew i'd never hear the end of it from my parents.