Dave woke up.

There are several stages one goes through when waking up. The first is that of refusal, when the mind just does not wish to return to reality. It has to think too much and it isn’t as fun.
The second stage is denial, when the body firmly puts its foot down and insists there is a very good reason for leaving the blissful realm of sleep.
The third stage is argumentative, where the mind complains that it is quite happy to get up later but for now it would rather continue dreaming about sex. Apparently everything in dreams boils down to sex, which is worrying if you awake from a dream about, for example, llamas.
This is followed by a sub-stage wherein the body continues to insist that it must get up for whatever reason, and that although it does not wish to be a bore, it is probably quite essential.
The final stage is acceptance, where the brain gives in to see what all the fuss is about.

In this case, the body had been so determined to wake up because Dave’s room was on fire.

“Jesus!” Exclaimed Dave as he leapt out of bed. Although it is usually quite difficult to get ones bearings first thing in the morning, the prospect of imminent death is wonderfully refreshing.
Okay, thought Dave, what do they tell you to do in these situations? OhGodOhGodOhGod my door is on fire, as is my wall. Ah yes! You throw your mattress out of the window and jump down onto it!
Dave lived on the tenth floor of a council block, so this wasn’t very helpful. Besides which a piece of his wall had just fallen off and set his bed on fire.
Dave ran to the window and flung it open. There were firemen outside, but they didn’t seem to be doing much. In fact, one was using a burning piece of mattress (presumably from someone who had taken a little longer to spot the flaw in the traditional escape method) to boil a kettle.
“Oi!” Shouted Dave politely, “What’re you doing?”
Several firemen glanced up. “Making tea!” Replied one.
“Oh.” Dave wasn’t sure exactly how to respond to this. It wasn’t something they trained you for; in school he had been taught about crawling along the floor and mattresses and things, but there had never been any lessons about what to say to a fireman who was making a brew at an inconvenient moment.
“Well, erm… could you rescue me instead?” He called back.
The firemen glanced at each other as if processing a new thought.
“Weeeel we could…” One shouted, “’cept we’re on strike, see?”
Dave goggled. He had never goggled before, as the opportunity to do so had never before presented itself. He was rather worried he would never goggle again; his neck was getting rather warm.
“I’d really appreciate it very much.” Shouted Dave, getting more and more panicky. He turned to survey his burning apartment, and saw that his hamster had caught fire. It didn’t look like it was enjoying it very much.
“I dunno…” The fireman shouted back, “It’s the principle of it, y’see…”
“FOR GOD’S SAKE MAN JUST COME UP HERE AND RESCUE ME!!!” Screamed Dave. This was rather rude of him, but he can probably be excused. No-one likes to be burned alive first thing in the morning.
“Well if you’re gonna be like that, I don’t think we will rescue you.” The fireman shouted haughtily.
Dave took a deep breath to calm his nerves. Unfortunately his room was filling up with various toxic fumes, and this meant that instead he flew into a spectacular fit of coughing, choking and hacking that could put a professional chain-smoker to shame.
A minute or so later, after the coughing had subsided, Dave stuck his red face out of the window and gasped “If you’re not here to rescue people, why are you here?”
“Kettle’s on the blink.” They replied, in the manner of someone making a perfectly reasonable statement.
Dave blinked a few times. Screw this, he thought and turned to look at his room. Retrieving a golf club from the only corner that wasn’t on fire, he poked gingerly at his door, which disintegrated. He realised at this point that the lesson they teach about crawling on the floor below the smoke isn’t very useful when the floor is, in fact, burning.
Dave turned again to the problem at hand. He couldn’t climb down the building (because the walls were on fire), he couldn’t walk from the building (because the floor was on fire), he couldn’t stay where he was (because the immediate vacinity was on fire) and he couldn’t be rescued (because the firemen were bastards).
He scanned the room for anything useful. There was nothing. He scanned the room again for something a little less than useful; again, nothing. Finally he settled for scanning the room for something that just wasn’t on fire, which consisted of himself, his golf clubs, and some spare sheets.

Spare sheets.

In desperate times, the brain works furiously. In this case it was furious at the body, because it had been better when it was asleep and dreaming about sex (it had actually been dreaming about bananas, but it takes all kinds). However, the smaller and less intelligent part of Dave’s brain was formulating a rather stupid yet attractive idea.
Running across the hot carpet, Dave grabbed the spare sheets and folded them out. He selected the biggest one and tied the four corners onto a golf club, so that it formed a rudimentary parachute. It must be pointed out that this is in the same way a sieve is a rudimentary boat.

Dave walked to the window.
He looked down.
He decided looking down was quite a bad idea and closed his eyes instead.
He grasped his parachute, and jumped.

Five minutes later, the firemen were all sitting outside the smouldering building having a cuppa and a quick smoke.
“I can’t believe that parachute actually worked.” One said, lighting his cigarette off a mattress.
“Yeah.” Said another thoughtfully, “Although I doubt it would have if he hadn’t let go.”