Red in the Silver, Silver in the Red

Red in the Silver, Silver in the Red

Then

It was hardly difficult, almost a ritual by now. All she had to do was excuse herself to the bathroom. Silently edge into the kitchen instead. Rummage for the oil and grin mirthlessly to herself about how they would never grill a steak again, what with her putting all the oil to better use. Drizzle the oil around, while sauntering through their house, staring at their pictures on the wall. Step out into the cold, black outside. Go around their sweet, cozy house, humming, the oil bottle nearly empty by that point. Pull out the beautiful, silver lighter, like all the times before. Finger its engravings delicately. Bend down, hand brushing against the now greasy grass, flip the lighter and back up.

And then she watched the house burn.

Now

“Oh no, no please, I’m full really”, I say as Nina presses the bowl of hummus onto me. Mark is no different, he all but falls over offering me the crackers to go with it. “Come on now, if you weren’t hungry, my wife could have just treated you to those few apples in the supermarket aisle then”, he guffaws. “Mark!” Nina hisses, elbowing him slightly. She smiles sheepishly at me, while I laugh, “If I’d known I’d be meeting you lovely people and getting invited over today, I’d have certainly gone a bit easy on lunch today. I would love a coffee though.” As Nina hastens to do just so, I make polite eye contact with Mark, while leaning back comfortably in the chair.

If there ever was a time to say “Make yourself at home”, it would be now because the truth is, I’d known them for a while now, just that they didn’t know it. To them, I was the gracious stranger who had offered Nina the last carton of apples in the aisle. To me, it was Nina, who regularly came by the library to borrow sickening love novels, with a vapid smile on her face. Sometimes she brought little Danny with her, who clung to her wailing, vulnerable. Sometimes, it was Mark coming to return her novels, red faced and irritable.

“So what is you do?”, Mark asks me as Nina sits down carefully with the coffee cups. “Oh, I’m an arsonist”, I smile. “Sorry what?,” they look bewildered. “Archivist”, I enunciate. Their faces clear up and Mark says humorously,” So a librarian then?” Oh, typical Mark. Another elbow in the ribs from Nina.

“No you see, librarians are in charge of diverting books to people, whereas I take care of the documents and records”, I elucidate coolly. “I’ve never been a people’s person really,” I add lightly, while blazing houses glow softly in my mind. “I maintain control over the material, and I decide what has long term value and what doesn’t”, I can practically feel the glint in my eyes now, the prey getting closer, the scent of blood stronger. “Would you excuse me for a moment? Where’s the bathroom please?” I swan over to the direction they point me in, actually the bathroom this time, instead of the usual detour.

I lock the bathroom and make my way to the mirror, clutching the sink hard as I look into my eyes. They’re clear to the point of void. Sea green, but the frigid depths of the ocean. Auburn hair, like ash and embers. I am fire and ice, smoke and sleet; my face summer, and soul winter.

I twirl my hair dreamily, thinking back to that day. Almost 15 years have passed now, but I remember it like yesterday. My mother in the rocking chair, the cigarette blighting her blackish hand. Her bright auburn hair piled roughly at the top of her head, her mouth slack and wrinkled. Dozens of candles gleaming dully around her, I suppose she wanted to mask the putrid smell for my sake. She lay still, breaking my heart with her broken promises. The vase on the flaking table with the rotten flowers. The stale food. The hope that one day my mother would want to be alive for me again, all gone like the puffs of smoke she took.

It’s not hard to guess one of those candles did it. You could almost say it was bound to happen. My mother, who’d cooked her lungs by then, could only meet her end in a similar way. So when the fire started, she resigned herself to it. As for me, I just stood motionless, fascinated by the flames licking up the curtains. I watched the candles melt around my mother, the chair turn black, her grip on the cigarette tight as ever. There was a melody in her coughing, she finally appeared alive. Hair incandescent, face radiant.

That was the last time I saw her.

I don’t remember how I made it out. The neighbors must have dragged me out. People, so many people, rallied around me but all I could see and hear and feel was the engraving on her silver lighter, the thing I had somehow grabbed on the way out. The racing, conflicting emotions and their intensity had me choking more than the smoke did. People marveled at how I had gotten out unscathed, but what the world didn’t know, couldn’t see, is only the lighter had made it out unharmed.

It started out as just an intrigue for fire. Bonfires. Candles. A soothing fireplace. Never cigarettes though. Then burning notebooks in the house. Then burning wood in the backyard. As the fires grew bigger, so did I. As the fires grew hotter, so did my rage. The angrier I got, the calmer I became. Well, outwards at least. What was the burning need for love when you could just find it in these embers?  Where was God but in the ashes, if your own mother couldn’t try and save you?

Fire is an adventure to me, it’s cleansing, a rite of passage. For me, it’s the truest test of love, it comes down to whom you save first. Your own life, or the ones you call your whole life? I am often disappointed when I stand outside those searing houses and look inside the smoggy windows. The ones who wrap themselves around each other and try and find a way out. And the ones who forget each other while trying to find a way out. I see true love in the former, burning a hole in my heart for what I’ll never have, and my mother in the latter, my heart aflame all the same. The vengeance never dies down, but now this family would.

That’s the thing about working in a library. The quietest, most boring place for some. No one would ever suspect you. You could actually do your job, which ironically happens to be similar to my hobby, controlling what deserves to make it long term and what doesn’t. Or brazenly survey the people who come in, right out in the open. Or my favourite thing personally, plan my next adventures. No one knows me. No one will.

Danny’s knocking brings me out of this reverie. “Mom Dad want to know if you’re alright Ms. Ms.-I don’t know“, he lisps. I smile, unconsciously touching my stomach, registering what I want, but am too terrified to bring into this wretched world. “I’m quite alright, I’ll be right out!” I hear him stomping away on his tiny feet, babbling and cooing, and sigh. Things would have to be different this time, for his sake.

So I finally go back to the living room, where they’re waiting for me, slightly perturbed by my long absence. I assure them everything is fine and wag my finger at them saying with mock concern, “Don’t have Mexican for lunch. It’ll keep you on the toilet for hours! Especially with your age Mark” They wrinkle their noses, but laugh all the same and I feel vindication, having gotten a dig back at Mark. When it’s time to leave, I look squarely into their faces and say with warmth, “It was lovely to meet you both. Have a good night and I’ll see you soon!” It’s more amiability than I usually possess, after all I was giving them the chance to say goodbye to each other and at least be asleep when I would come by this time around. Sweet Danny. I couldn’t let him be awake for this.

The night grows still and chilly. I am huddled tightly into my coat as I walk back to their house two hours later, hand in my pocket, caressing the lighter. The lights are out, there’s no going back. I hum the lullaby my mother used to sing me to sleep with, before the cigarettes blemished our lives. I circle the house slowly, face vacant, body deadened, and oil trickling in place behind me. There’s no wind but the flowers in their garden sway slightly, as if they know. They know what’s coming.

As the house starts to burn, it colors the night up. I go from drowning in black, to celebrating the fiery red. The smell of dew, my conscience, now the smell of smoke, my escape. The overwhelming silence, now the roar of fire, too loud for me to hear Danny’s screams, if any. I pray to the God I don’t believe in, for him to sleep through it. As I look into their window and the chaos within, it happens. I see my mother getting up from that chair. Walking towards me. Hugging me. Shielding me from the flames. I only see it for a split second, but the grief shatters my body into pieces. I suddenly feel more than I have in years, all the emotions and sensations and feelings I’d numbed down and just ME, pounding through my veins. I am on fire. I am a block of ice. I am the scorching sun and then a torrent of rain. I am all the seasons in one.

 Still, I don’t cry. What good would the mere moisture from my eyes do to stifle this monstrosity I’d created? I don’t run for help. No one can help. I continue to stand and stare like I did 15 years ago. The fire is enormous and part of me wants to run into it. But I don’t. Instead I throw the lighter as hard as I can into it, and walk away.