12: Starfish

back grasped in her hand was a doggied paperback edition of bernardo's cleaned by a gamble she held it up so she could see the cover reflected in a decorative mirror on the opposite stall a reproduction of hux still life from the stockade the title an author's name imposed slapdash over the watercolor in a garish font turgidly colored turning it upside down she made a sushi sound with her mouth before buying it over the next few days she carefully read through the book tearing out each page she finished then she flooded her mouth with saliva sniffed in nasal mucus scrunched up the sheet and popped it into her mouth to chew after some time shoved onto her front dangling her arms over the edge and spat the snotty pulp onto a metal tray situated on the floor at the bedside and began mixing it with tufts of sheep wool that a younger brother had collected from the barbed wire fence that ran along the bottom of the garden finally springing up from the bed and using her chair as a stem she reached up to push it into the top left corner of her room above the south facing bedroom window to join all the previous books she had processed that year she lay back down the sun warned her face she continued reading a glow pervaded her infused and admitted she dropped the hand she had held up over her brow to shield some of the light's unwanted intensity her eyelids half closed to absorb the gentle heat she turned her head and spat some leftover mulch paper towards the tray settling her head back onto the pillow she noticed a blood red color gathering at the outer edge darkening the previously carmine washed tassel plates which now pulsed a warning in dayglow greens and yellows Lucy ---- it's 4 a.m the light in the bathroom is on the same circuit as the extractor fan and i don't want to wait lucy so i light a candle lower my pajama bottoms and sit down that's when i realized it's not a candle it's a world war ii marine distress flare from the ebay box so i panic and fling it into the corner of the room now if i've been thinking correctly i'd have known that unless i unwrapped the paper casement unscrewed the safety cap and loaded the arm cartridge into the chamber of the flare gun which i didn't have the chances of the flare actually igniting were non-existent and because i only lit part of the paper cap i could easily have shaken the flame out but the cartridge ricochets off the bathroom wall paper still light and ascent spinning towards the laundry basket which is full of overalls and rags soaked in turpentine from furniture restoration i was doing earlier but luckily it just grazes the flammable fabric bounces off the basket ring and lands squarely back into the ebay box where i see the flames flicker and grow as my mind runs through the box's contents: one assorted pack of big bass fireworks containing 12 roman candles 10 bottle rockets 10 jumping jacks eight skyrockets six catherine wheels four eagle fountains; 22 vials of an experimental mixture of potassium nitrate sulfur and charcoal granules - the principal ingredients in an exfoliating facial scrub - a franchise since abandoned in favor of my furniture upcycling initiative, especially since the initial and concluding clinical trials on lucy revealed the cosmetic to precipitate a localized outbreak of painful blisters and swelling; a five-liter carton of tetrachloroethylene - the dry cleaning solvent packaged and recycled cardboard an attempt to appeal to the eco-conscious consumer of clothing cleaned in chemical solvents, an ill-conceived venture on two fundamental levels which i won't go into here...; six bundles of mx-80 firecrackers for the kids a 10-pound sack of ammonium nitrate for the farmers and a miniaturized but fully functional replica of the trident d2 ballistic missile for the serious end game cosplay nuts snapping back to the present i notice a glass of water next to the basin and hurl the contents towards the box but in a semi-darkness i don't realize that it's actually the jar of turpentine i was using to clean my varnish brushes earlier until the liquid ignites sending a surge of flames towards the ceiling setting off the sprinkler system which ordinarily would be a welcome corrective to this calamity had i not unfortunately filled the system with white spirits yesterday in an attempt to clean it which apparently should never do so now the room begins to fill with a flammable noxious mist i grabbed the corner of the shower curtain pulling it over my head to shield myself and the force of my tug pulls three rings from the rail one of which connects with the swing top lid of the ebay box closing it on the flames which extinguish immediately and seconds later the sprinklers turn off i carefully emerge from the shower curtain and assess the scene the ebay box is emitting a few dying wisps of grey smoke everything's moist with the flammable jew of cleaning solvents that glisten softly in the dancing glimmer of amber light i begin to relax all now seems calm and relatively subdued but then i wonder where is this dancing flicker of amber light coming from and it's only then i noticed the lighter in my right hand a bunny zippo from a consignment of counterfeit miffy's smoking paraphernalia recalled from sail due to a defect causing excessive leakage of fuel it's still light and it's been steadily dripping liquid butane onto my flannel gym jams it's also at this point that the scalding heat of the lighter's flint wheel still pressing against my thumb becomes apparent and not wanting to wake lucy i went silently as i drop the lighter into the combustible bunches between my legs i ignite in a flash like the head of a match the flannel night pants go first followed by the pajama jacket then my hair my beard my eyebrows all my skin in a futile panic i get up and start to shuffle about but my movements impeded by the flaming pajama bottoms around my ankles where am i going to go i'm on fire probably the safest thing to do is just stay here in this tiled room resigned i sit back down on the toilet seat and let the flames do their thing and as the tissues of my body are transfigured into heat light and ash i regret to a degree not acquainting myself with ebay's list of items prohibited rom sale lucy finds me in the morning: a charred cadaver still seated on the latrine. she sniffs at my cauterised femurs and then pads around the flat in search of her squeeky starfish. oh yes you see we meet each other every saturday morning and a little party at the back of my house