Part 3: "Burning Hate" (still)

After what seemed like a dream but was reality in it's most gruesome and horrific tangible authenticity, I had pseudo-unintentionally destroyed our suburban flat, and could hear the screams of horror from neighbors, whose adjoining apartments were suffering similar fates. My body covered in cracking, lapping whips of flare and flame I was struck with the sudden realization of what was happen, although I was still not entirely sure how it had happened. I was suddenly aware, however, that, whatever had happened, I was at fault and that I needed to vacate the premises with hast and without leaving my unfaithful, now deceased spouse and her deceased lover at the scene. With the sound of sirens from the impending authorities in my ears, I fled with two charred and unrecognizable corpses flung over a shoulder to my automobile. I sped away in my Geo hatchback as fast as I could to as remote an area of the country I knew of and tried desperately to make sense of what had happened.

The sensation all over my body was warm enough to make me sweat but was simultaneously causing the air from the open windows of my hatchback to chill my skin all over. It felt like the most comfortable fever I'd ever experienced. One would think that the smell from the dead, burnt bodies in the back of the car would over-power the stint's of the singed hair that once covered my own body, yet, my newly bare form was keenly apparent to me from what was the unmistakable smell of my own burnt body hair. Oddly enough, not even a sunburn or pink patch of skin could be found. Rather, my pale and tender complexion was as it had always been. Only hairless and warm. Such immunity to fire could not be said of my wife or her companion crackling in the back seat, losing more of their earthly coil with every bump and curve in the long, isolated road.

Had I really just set fire to myself, and, in doing so, to my wife and to our apartment? Was the betrayal of my only love so desperately vile to me that, in a fit of rage I had ended her life, and the life of the man who perpetrated the act along with her? I tried to recall my adolescent years, taking physical science classes, and fire safety videos in chemistry, all cataloging what was required to make a fire. One would need fuel, a spark, and oxygen to create a fire. To my knowledge my body was lacking, if not two main components, then certainly one. And why was my own flesh impervious to the heat and flame even when my hair was not? All of these questions raced inside of me, all the while gradually allowing hate to creep in to justify my actions as retribution for my lost love's transgressions. As I concentrated on my wife's callow dishonesty, and my father's absence, and my mother's weakness I felt my pores begin to whistle softly and my skin became warm and my eyes pressurize, burning as if every blood vessel was ready to burst out, crying for fresh air. Peering down as I drove, a shallow, blue wave of light cover my right hand as I allowed myself to dwell on the hate I was feeling for those that had wronged me. My mind snapped to as I violently shook my hand before the flame could spread to my upper-arm. Wavering from the road, my eyes failed to see the dark canyon of trees through which I traveled curve slightly to the left. I lost control and my vehicle careened into a large ditch, swallowing it whole and trapping my victims and me inside as both doors and open windows were blocked on either side by earth, grass and mud. My solitary wish was that the high, narrow walls of the trench would hinder the incidental passer-by from noticing my little toy car, not to be rescued until I had met the same fate of my rear passengers.

To be continued. (it might not be called "Side Show" after all)