The flame and the cold

The previous 24 hours have been rather odd. Both my room mates are visiting friends and family elsewhere, so I'm "home alone" so to speak.
Saturday night, 12:30-ish, the lights throughout the house began to flicker on and off, and eventually all turned off. I wander through the house trying to figure out what's going on, using only my Cell-phone for light. I call my very sensible room mate for advice.
Then I go down into the basement to look at the circuit breaker, it looks like there is smoke everywhere. I turn everything on and off. I call the land-lord. Go to the basement again, this time with a candle. The smoke seems to have left.
I decided to go to bed, but I lay there and this overpowering burnt smell gorges my nostrils.
I try to get to sleep, but can't. I keep imagining that smell is some sort of gas leak and that I won't wake up. Fred, Ian, CJ, or Keith will find me sometime midweek asphyxiated in my bed.
Eventually I get up, its 2-ish in the morning by then. I call up Keith and ask if I can crash on his couch. I go out from the house wearing my pj's and my Oregon hoodie, holding a pillow and blanket--like Linus from Peanuts. I pass drunk teens sneaking back home, they say nothing to me, I say nothing to them.
I get in my car, drive to Seminary, ring Keith's door, and crash on his couch. In the morning I blow my nose and soot stained snot comes out. I head back to the apartment. It still smells and the house is cold, but didn't burn down in the night.
I call PECO and they send a guy out. He wanders down stairs with his helmet flashlight, gets some tools, knocks open a box attached to the wall in the basement, looks inside it, and tells me it looks like the lines underneath the house caught fire. I say I didn't even know there were lines underneath the apartment. He says they'll get someone to come and rip out the sidewalk and get to the wiring. I tell him I'll be at the cigar store next door charging my phone and keeping warm.
A few hours later I get an automated call, it tells me power in my vicinity has been restored. So I go home, flip some switches, and find out power has not been restored. I call up PECO again and explain that things aren't fixed.
A few hours later they send a crew--this one in a huge PECO truck. They break open the box and make the same assessment as the first. So they drill. They get to the burnt wiring, take it out, and show me. Then they realize to replace the wiring they need to drill another hole. And they do.
I wait around in the cigar shop for a while, then when I know my fellow Seminarians have gotten back from field ed I hang out with them for a while. Around 6pm I get a call. They've restored power to the apartment.
So I go and indeed there is heat and light. They say they'll pave the holes sometime this week.
And that, that is what happened yesterday.