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Since you’re probably already thinking I’m a fucking psycho as far as fire goes, let’s get a few things straight. Just because I happen to have a burn fetish doesn’t mean that I don’t know when to put down the lighter. What most people don’t seem to realize is that not all my wounds and scars were self-inflicted, though everyone who knows me just sort of assumes that. I’ve been through plenty of shit in my life like most of the other kids out here. The only difference is that I never let it get to me.
I was never a slave to prescription meds, I never went to a therapist or took Adderall or Xanax or any of that junk some of the other boys around here got addicted to. I hate prescription stuff. For the most part I’ve done weed, X, dabbled in coke here or there, but I stopped all that months ago. ‘Cept for weed. Even if I wanted to go harder, there’s not much left in this town. Nowadays, I just smoke and drink myself stupid. I live with my aunt and she pretty much does the same, so it’s not like anyone gets on my case about it.
My folks died when I was about six years old while we were coming back from a vacation in Orlando. I don’t really remember it so well, or at least I try not to. The way I see it, we all have our own little horror stories about the past and it’s just not worth it to get hung up over ancient history. Worse things happen in the future. I would never admit it, but that’s probably what scares me the most.
Anyway, we’d been driving on the freeway for a couple hours. Dad had the AC blasting, Mom was rocking out to Journey or something. They kept arguing because I guess her passenger seat dancing was distracting him from the road. All of a sudden, this huge oil tanker made too sharp of a turn into the left lane only seconds before we came into a strip of construction cutting off the whole right side of the road. The truck went crashing through the concrete median and flipped onto its side. That part I do remember, because I saw it from the back seat in front of us. It exploded moments later, sending huge waves of flame gushing out in all directions.
My mom screamed as my dad swerved to the right and slammed on the brakes, but there was literally nowhere else to go except into the opposite median because it was a single-lane zone. The Honda in front of us had tried the same thing, and we went smashing into them full-force. Our car flipped several times before landing directly in the path of the flames. I was fine by some miracle, but my mom and dad were killed almost instantly. Splatters of blood covered the broken windshield, bits of broken glass were everywhere. The driver of the car behind us had stopped just in time to climb over the flipped Honda and quickly ran over to my rescue. By then, I was terrified stiff.
It took him a couple minutes of struggling and calling for help to open up the door across from me since my side was all smashed in. I still find it funny how just a few inches can mean the difference between life and death. If the right rear door had been bent in any further, it would have crushed a few of my bones. The fire was spreading fast into our car, and I could already feel myself going into shock as I choked on the smoke. Flames licked my neck and I could feel my clothing start to melt away as the heat seared my skin. My shirt collar was fusing onto my flesh. I can’t even describe the agony that was, but like I said, I was in total shock. I couldn’t even scream, though I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks and my face contorting like I wanted to.
My heart was racing so bad I thought I was gonna pass out. Throat was ready to explode and alarms were clanging inside my body, nerves about to burst open. I knew I had to move, but I couldn’t do that either. My motor function was just gone. By then I was gasping from lack of oxygen, and all I could do was watch in horror, my parents all bloody, broken, and dead while I awaited the same fate as I sat looking up at what I thought was the last blue sky I’d ever see in my life. There was no way out. I was completely petrified.
Just as I noticed the teddy bear in my arms charring to bits of cotton and fuzz while the seatbelt that held me in place started to smoke as flames spread over my chest, two people finally managed to pry open the adjacent door. They frantically cut away my seatbelt since some of it had already fused to my body along with my shirt, and they dragged me out just in time for the whole car to explode into a pile of burning rubble, ash, and debris behind us. I screamed for my parents the whole time. It would help somehow, they could hear me and wake up I thought. But they never did. Shortly after that, I was shoved into an ambulance and shipped off to the hospital. Following my recovery—which took about two months, plus physical therapy—I was sent to live with my aunt in the goddamn backwater town of Kentsburg, Mississippi.
In the beginning, there were honestly days where I would rather have died. I missed my parents so bad I’d cry myself to sleep. When I got a little older, the fights with my aunt started. I always felt like she was prying into my life and never understood me, plus she was a stupid drunk who never listened. I used to punch and kick her a lot when we’d get physical. One time I actually fractured her shin and gave her a displaced kneecap. She didn’t bother me too much after that, so we learned to keep our distance from each other.
That’s pretty much how it’s been ever since. I’ve never gotten along with her boyfriends too well either. They’re always scummy, trying to tell me what to do. One of them tried grabbing my crotch when I was eleven and I stabbed him in the chest. Pity he lived that time ‘cause Ghost and I actually turned out to have a somewhat mutual past with the guy, but that’s another story.
Around the time I turned thirteen, I had my second encounter with fire. In my middle school science class, the teacher had set up these Bunsen burners and showed us how to safely turn them on and off. We were doing some sort of experiment with the boiling point of water or something like that, and it really fascinated me. For some reason whenever we went over stuff about fire in that class, I was all ears. I had to learn as much as possible about the thing that had almost killed me as child. I wanted to know my enemy.
The only thing was that during the counseling my aunt forced me to go to after the whole car accident ordeal, I had been told by the psychologist that I would endure all this trauma and never want to be around open flame ever again. For a while, he was right. I’d freak out in the winter when I was given hot chocolate or when my aunt would bring in the heater to help me warm up. If I was getting out of bed and accidentally hit the radiator, I would run all the way downstairs to the basement. At that point, I would rather have been freezing cold. Even at room temperature, I could feel the burning sensations through my scars. Sometimes I still do.
By the end of elementary school, a couple kids named Nick and Steve who I didn’t really know had started smoking in the downstairs bathrooms that few people ever used since the entire wing was under renovation. I’d often go down there if I really needed to be alone or get away from the morons who bullied me constantly. That day though, I was feeling sick after getting nailed in the stomach and beat up pretty bad for trying to get my lunch money back. I ran past them and puked a couple times before coming out of the stall.
“Hey dude,” said Nick, the older one. He was about my age, but I didn’t have class with him. “What the hell you do to get beat like that?”
“I was trying to get my lunch money back,” I sighed, trying not to look at him for too long in case he was gonna start pounding the crap outta me too. I routinely got enough awkward stares and chuckles under the breath because of my scars ever since we started having to change for gym class. Of course everyone thought I was a freak and I pretty much became an outcast.
“The hell is wrong with you? Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Nick shouted, grabbing my shirt and dragging me towards him. I shuddered, but he just gave me a smile and let go. “I ain’t gonna hurt you dude, chill out. You’re cool by us,” he said, trying to hand his cigarette to me. I backed away when I saw the cherry burn bright as he took another drag.
“I can’t,” I said. My heart instantly started to pound. Just the sight of that bright orange glow made me cringe, and I could feel the heat swelterin
g beneath my skin in the worst way…
“Why not? You too pussy for a smoke?”
“I-I just don’t like fire, okay?” That was back when even hearing the word would drive me nuts. I bit my lip and looked away, terrified he was going to try something.
“Man, what’s the big deal? It’s just a little thing,” the younger boy grinned, flicking a small lighter he had pulled out.
“GET AWAY!” I screamed at the top of my lungs and ran outta there faster than I ever have in my life, the sound of their taunting laughs echoing all down the hallway and up the stairwell. In a way, it was almost worse than getting burned or beat up. I would never forget that experience either, and so that brief conversation stayed with me in my head even as I flipped the switch for the Bunsen burner in science class. I had to smile knowing I was a lot more comfortable now because I knew how to be in control of things.
I’d gotten a lot better with fire in recent years as I slowly began to understand it; what conditions can cause it, what liquids and materials act as conductors, how hot flames are, how fast they can spread, how to efficiently put them out if you don’t have a fire extinguisher...I pretty much know damn near everything there is to know about fire. I always thought it ironic that I ended up the exact opposite of what my therapist used to say.
Even as I lit up the flame that day, it suddenly felt like that fire had spread again, beautiful and pure as it always was. It was alive, I was alive, and it was no longer something that scared the piss out of me but instead was my passion, something that really fascinated me. Every chance I got up until that science class, I had been playing with fire and never once did it burn me again. Part of this was because I knew how to handle it properly now, how to put it out if I needed to, always using protection if it became necessary. If you keep your eyes on the flame and never take it out of your sight, you’ll never get burned.
But that was exactly the thing I forgot in science class that day—the fact that I was dealing with a gas-powered flame.
The second I turned it on, I felt such a rush. There was my enemy standing right in front of me. For the first time in my life since the accident, I felt paralyzed. I wasn’t afraid of it because I knew it was contained. It wouldn’t spread or consume everything anymore. I was safe. I was completely quiet, and there was nothing it could do to hurt me now. I had found a great respect for such a powerful thing, and we had practically become best friends over the summer, fire and me. It’s safe, I thought. It’s completely contained. Completely calm. But I wasn’t. I knew I wasn’t, and that was exactly where my problem started, spreading deeper and quicker than any flame ever could.
Again, I felt suffocated and choked of all oxygen as I sat there with my breath caught up in my throat, staring at this beautiful blue thing, flashes of the car accident still fresh in my mind. I realized that somehow, I couldn’t feel anger about it anymore. I guess I had used it as an excuse for so long that it started being okay for me to act pissed off or irritated with my aunt, my teachers, or anyone else who gave me a problem. “It’s because his parents died when he was young, he’ll always be traumatized by it,” they would say. And so every chance I got from about the third grade on, I’d started acting unruly and stupid. I would be screaming in class, throwing shit around. They would counsel me but when my aunt came in and mentioned what had happened to me, nobody would do anything. So all that rage, the quiet, burning rage I felt...it was almost like the fire had replaced who I was inside, and there was no going back. I just needed to know why. Why had it changed me so much?
“What the hell do you want from me?” I whispered. “Please tell me...” I gently set my hands on the counter top and scooted my chair up to rest my chin on top of them as I continued staring into the flame like it was a crystal ball, one that held the illusive answer to all my life’s questions. I had no idea why I was doing this or how it was helping me. When I tried to think of it rationally, none of it made any sense.
I’m staring into space, I thought. And there were no answers to be had, no goddamn reasoning behind the whole thing. I started to wish I had died with my parents just to be spared of the fact I was now becoming fire myself, choking off anyone who came around me, waiting like a bomb to explode and char their skin off.
By my own rationale, I’d been cheated out of death by the idiots who just had to tear the damn car door off and cut me out of there. That was their biggest mistake. They had unknowingly released the devil onto the earth, and a bit of his soul had slipped into me from all the burns I incurred. I suffered some minor lung damage back then from smoke inhalation as well, and I figured that probably prevented me from getting enough air to rip him out of my skin. But so long as only half of the fire spirit was within me, I would never know it all. I wouldn’t get any answers, and I’d just keep staring into that goddamn flame in front of me, hoping in vain that it would change me back to who I was before the accident. Slowly I leaned in closer, brushing the hair out of my face. Closed my eyes.
“Come on...now it’s just you and me. I’m not afraid anymore. I won’t let you control my life. You’re gonna tell me exactly what you want, and I’ll take all the heat until you’re gone. You took my parents but you’re not taking me, you son of a bitch.”
I began to draw myself closer to the flame, savoring the waves of heat emanating from it. Pieces of hell were calling out to me, and I had to give them my demons back. I wanted to let it all go, to extinguish the burning thing before me. To take that pain and be one with it, to ignite my soul and have everlasting life with the flare. I would change my name and no longer be the scared, pitiful child I once was. Instead, I would be it all. I would be a god capable of wielding the power to destroy my enemies if I could only touch this thing and not be harmed, it would finally set me free. I knew it would.
But it was nothing like that at all. I have no clue where my state of mind went. I just kinda left. I could feel the pain as it started to burned my face right below my left eye, searing my flesh and singeing the top of my eyebrow as I moved closer. That’s right, take it back! My heart pounded an unnatural rhythm, immediately sending the blood rushing up to my head where it began to throb. I can honestly say I’ve never felt more alive at any other moment in my life. React! my brain screamed at me, crashing off alarms all throughout my body. My eye started watering, sending salty tears running down my face that stung as they escaped. I didn’t stop until my hair suddenly caught fire at which point I backed away, slapping hard at my face and nearly falling out of my chair. I saw a bit of smoke as the nasty scent of scorched flesh caught in my nostrils and I finally realized what was happening. Stupid!
“MARK, WATCH OUT!” exclaimed the teacher Mr. Monaghan as he came rushing over to me. “Oh my god, are you okay?! What the hell were you thinking, you weren’t even wearing your goggles! Jesus!” I didn’t pay any attention. All eyes in the class suddenly turned toward me and a few kids began to crowd around. Some of the girls gasped.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, but Monaghan was seething.
“Come over to the safety sink, geez!” he said firmly, cutting off the gas to the burner and guiding me over to the eye wash stand. He ran the water a couple seconds to make sure it was lukewarm before grabbing some paper towels. I felt a rush of stinging pain, a cracked glass sensation that only the water could remedy. Once it hit me that that was probably the stupidest decision I’d ever made, I would much rather have endured it. Eventually, I gave in dipped my face under the water where he held my head down.
“I think I’m alright,” I said, bringing my head up after a couple seconds and taking the paper towels.
“How many times do I have to emphasize the importance of safety to you kids,” he sighed, sounding frustrated. “Sabota, come here!” Johnny came over. “Get him to the nurse’s office right away!”
“I got it,” Johnny breathed. “Shit dude, you okay?!”
“My face kinda hurts,” I winced, the pain starting to pulse. I honestly didn’t think it was
that big a deal, and it’s not like it was their business anyway. Mr. Monaghan flashed me an angry look before addressing the rest of the class as Johnny put an arm around me to walk me out.
“Everyone turn off your burners, we’re doing something else today,” I heard his voice echo right before the door closed. No one else was out in the hall and it was pretty quiet, so I felt safe to talk to Johnny without anyone else listening. One thing about Johnny is that he knows pretty much all there is to know about me, which was why he wasn’t freaking out as hard as Mr. Monaghan. The guy looked super pissed, like he was gonna start throwing stuff if I hadn’t left the classroom right away. I guess that’s what I get when someone starts seeing through all my usual excuses.
Johnny took me over against the far wall and moved the hair out of my face, though some of it had matted to the burn. He gave me this really surprised look, like he was shocked I actually had the balls to do something like that. I turned my gaze back down the hallway to see if anyone was coming. The coast was clear.
“Dude, what the hell was that about?! he demanded. “You could have lost an eye!”
“I dunno.”
“Man, you’re freaking me out. You used to be all scared of fire. Why you being such a tough guy now? You’re really starting to worry me.”
“It’s nothing, okay? I just didn’t want to be scared anymore.”
“So you just fuckin’ burn yourself? You don’t gotta prove anything to me dude, I get it-”
“I’m not trying to prove anything,” I cut him off.
“So what? Do you really want Monaghan on your ass? He’s gonna talk to the staff and your aunt about this and then you’ll be in deep shit.”
“It was an accident, I’m cool.”
“No dude, not cool! That wasn’t an accident. I’ve known you for too long. Come on, let’s get to the nurse. You’re my best friend, I worry about you is all.”
“Fine,” I sighed. I was kinda glad he didn’t linger and make me talk further about it because truth be told, I didn’t want anybody to ask. It was personal to me. In a strange way, I guess you could say it almost felt like a small victory to get burned and not even cry about it. That in itself was power to me. Even if it did leave a permanent scar and disfigure half my face, I really didn’t care. I had survived. If I did it once, I could do it again. The fire was mine, and I wasn’t going to let it control me anymore. The way I saw it, I’d been hiding in the dark for way too long. It was time for me to become who I was born to be.
As Johnny led me down to the nurse that day, a lot of things were running through my mind. Stuff like what my aunt would say when she realized I might be permanently stuck like this and there was nothing that could really be done about my face, what girls might think in the future if I ever found one I liked. But the biggest thing for me was wondering if I’d even have any friends left by the time I was out of high school. Johnny already thought I was a freak, and Mike was in another class so he didn’t know yet. I wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed, I was just scared of being alone.
When we got to the nurse’s office, Johnny held the door open for me. I kinda hesitated for a second. Questions were the last thing I wanted to deal with, but I knew I would have to eventually. He let out a smirk when I walked past him and we went to sit down on the bench. I kept trying to look away until he reached out to grab my chin and move my head so he could see how bad the burn was.
“That is so gross dude,” he laughed. “People will be talkin’ about ya.”
“I don’t care,” I sighed. “Not like anyone really paid attention to me before.”
“What were you doing, anyways?”
I shrugged. “I was sick of being afraid.”
“What are you gonna tell the nurse?”
“I tripped and fell over the counter and my face hit it. That sounds good, right?”
“Monaghan might squeal.”
“Nah, he’s a pussy.”
“Look…I still think you’re nuts,” Johnny shook his head, “but I got your back. And quit bringing lighters to school or they’ll send you to juvie.”
“I know,” I smiled.
“You don’t care, do you?”
“My parents are dead, man. I stopped caring a long time ago.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he just smirked and stood up shaking his head again. “I’ll check you in, okay?”
“Alright.” I buried my face in my hands as he went over to the desk to write my name in the book and told the nurse what was going on with me. I suddenly had this huge urge to run out of there, just bolt through the damn door and head outside, run and hide anywhere I could until the remainder of the school day was over. But no matter how hard I tried to find the will, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Besides, I didn’t want to leave Johnny any more than he wanted to leave me. At that point, he was the only real friend I had. Mike certainly would never understand what was going on. I had to give Johnny credit for being cool about it and doing the best he could under the circumstances. I could tell he didn’t get it, but who really would?
A few seconds later, the nurse came up. I curled up and tried to turn away, hoping she wouldn’t notice. Of course that only made her reaction worse. I still felt pretty vulnerable, but at the same time it was like there was this new power of respect I thought I might be able to wield against people eventually. Fear is a powerful thing, though it was never my intention to freak people out like that. It was just something that came with the territory, I guess. Whether it was a blessing or a curse, that was who I was. Nobody was going to put my lights out.
“Oh my god, Mark!” she exclaimed. Great. Just what I need. “Come on sweetie, that looks second degree! Is your eye okay?”
“I think so…”
“Stop covering it, let me see…ugh, that’s going to leave a scar, you’re already blistering. We’ve got to soak it for fifteen and put some ointment on it right away, come on!” She led me and Johnny over to a smaller room with a bed and pulled the curtain closed behind us. “Over to the sink, let’s get you cooled down.”
“It’s not that bad I don’t think,” I said, trying to downplay it as best I could.
“Don’t even play the Superman card with me, kiddo,” she sighed, ducking my face under the water. “Mind telling me how your face got stuck in a Bunsen burner?”
“It was an accident.”
“Accident, huh? I haven’t seen an accident with that for years. I know how you kids feel about those stupid goggles, they make you look like a bunch of morons, but they’re supposed to keep you safe. What were you doing that close to the flame?”
I started trying to explain, but Johnny cut me off. “He turned around to get goggles off the other counter and then tried to lean back over, but he tripped and fell in it,” he said. “I think the switch was turned too high from last class.” The nurse turned off the water and helped me sit back up, giving me a cool washcloth. After a few minutes, she grabbed a tube of ointment.
“Try not to struggle sweetie, I have to move your hair out of the way, some of it got stuck in your skin. Eek! Lean your head back for me?”
“Aah!” I winced. She carefully pulled a few strands loose that had gotten fused onto the wound before applying the gel. I let out a long easy breath as the coolness hit my skin, soothing the top layer. She gently rubbed it over my left eyebrow, half of which had been burnt off along with some of my eyelashes. I was glad I hadn’t looked in the mirror yet. Johnny just sort of stood there the whole time shaking his head and biting his lip every so often when he glanced at me. I could tell he was really unnerved and worried and didn’t want to say anything, but I didn’t care that much. I just kept staring off into space, wondering where my obsession with fire might lead me next.
Looking out the window, I noticed a soft rain had begun to fall in the midst of the dreary October day. It was pretty cold out for that month, and though everyone so far had hated it—especially me—at least we were catching up on the stor
ms we’d missed out on during the summer. The sky had been gray for most of the morning, so I was dreading the moment this would happen. Rain meant no building fires outside, no setting off fireworks, none of that. My aunt didn’t really mind that I played with that kinda thing, just as long as I did most of it far away enough from the fields. It usually wasn’t a problem for me, but I hadn’t done it in a while.
And even as I sat there in the school nurse’s office with a fresh second degree burn on my face, I was already craving for candles, hot wax, sparklers, and the feel of sharp and sudden heat against my skin when I would mess with my lighter on the bus ride home.
Normal kids don’t think like this, especially not kids in eighth grade. They don’t go around setting things on fire for fun, shoving their faces into Bunsen burners, taking lighters to school, making their first Molotovs, or filling squirt guns full of gasoline to shoot into the neighbor’s field and end up burning down half an acre. I should have known better than that, or so I’ve been told. But it’s not like my aunt ever really cared much to teach me responsibility with any of this, and my parents sure as hell weren’t alive long enough to tell me that fire’s not a toy.
As I continued to observe the outside world, hearing the wind whistle slightly when it started to pick up and whip water drops against the window, I felt my mind go blank. I could hear the nurse and Johnny talking to each other, trying to talk to me but not really getting through even if they shook me. The menthol from the burn gel was already starting to wear off, and I couldn’t help but feel that some part of me was dead or extinguished as they put the bandage on my face.
My heart was beginning to thud in my chest even without the heat and flame, and I was getting a bit worried that it was too great of a security blanket for me. The minute I walked outside, I knew I would feel out of place. I couldn’t flicker out there, past the glass. I couldn’t waver, jump, dance...not how I wanted to. Without realizing it, I’d kinda fallen into a sweat. My hands suddenly felt clammy, I was practically melting as the heat of my burn grew worse. Give me kindling, I thought.
I needed fire to erode, to purify, to light the room full of my presence and send my heart exploding into the upper atmosphere and beyond, travelling somewhere out there...somewhere where I could belong, where I could be told that this wasn’t supposed to happen and that my parents were still alive to teach me everything I should have known. By now, my friends couldn’t even do it.
Because honestly, deep down? I knew I was freaking people out, and I had absolutely no clue how to make it stop. All I could do was keep staring out that window in the school nurse’s tiny office, hoping that when I finally did go home, maybe a venture out in the rain would do me some good. I still ended up playing with my lighter on the bus that day though, flicking it in a certain little pattern I wouldn’t see again for the next three years until that one night when I came across some flashing red lights in the fields…