This summer, the Saint-Henri (a neighbourhood of Montreal which was once a separate town) appartment building in which my brother and his girlfriend lived burned like a pack of matches for some yet unconfirmed reason. Most likely, it's the sawdust that isolated the walls and the crappy electrical wiring that didn't like each other.
They lost everything but for what they had on their back at the moment it happened, and a few items that were luckily saved from the ashes, including (can you believe it?) a digital camera.
I was on site the night it happened, and arrived just an hour or two after the firemen did. The most important thing was that they were both unharmed, except for the shock., obviously. That whole evening I served as a surrogate brain because they had trouble putting things together in their situation, so I barred any emotional response and concentrated on getting things done.
The day after was when it hit me, and that I realized what happened. I took my camera and went there in the hope of doing or finding something that would be worthwhile. Of the entire roll I snapped, this was probably the one that summed up everything:
"Damn, did you see that?"
Through all this trouble, they (and I) never ceased to make good humour of it, partly from self-defense, but also partly because only material things were destroyed. It's so hard to believe that it happened that the incongruity should only result in laughter.