Fire

It’s been a while since people stopped remembering where they were when things happen.

That seems perfectly normal to me, everything stopped happening when it wanted to and started happening all at once.

Think about it, we remember when our parents die because there’s only the two of them. Imagine you had seven, and they all died within a week of each other. That becomes the week your parents died. The Sunday your mother died, the Saturday your father died and everything in between just blends together.

Now imagine you had 365 parents. 3650. 36500. Years, decades and centuries could start falling into each other, as the periods of time in which it happened.

So to say, I don’t know when the blue fire reached my neck of the woods. All I know is that it started at some stage.

This morning, as any other, I am woken by the alarm on my phone to the ever-present crackling of the blue fire. I roll out of bed to start another day.

I pour something into my bowl and top it off with liquid from the fridge. I hop into the perpetual bathwater which has long since stopped looking like water. I rinse my mouth with the cup of blood I keep by the sink. I laugh.

Laughing is the most important part of the routine. Ever since I was a kid I have been told to laugh at the fire. It makes it go away. If you laugh you can’t see it, you can’t hear it. You can still feel the heat sure, but I had long since convinced myself I hated the cold.

After getting dressed, I decide to check if it’s one of the two weekend days. If it is, that means there will be football to watch down at the pub, provided it isn’t the summer.

Bingo. It’s Sunday, and definitely not summer. I put on my fire-resistant coat, ignoring the scent of burning flesh, before heading down to the pub. I don’t bother texting ahead to see if anyone will be there. Someone will be there.

As soon as I step outside, I’m assaulted by the chorus of laughter that accompanies any fire. It’s a feverish, unified laugh. As ubiquitous as it is prolonged. I start laughing myself.

“Hahahahahahah!”

It’s common courtesy to laugh when you’re outside. It’s impossible for anyone to laugh indefinitely, you need to catch your breath. But as long as someone is laughing nearby, you can feel like you’re laughing at the fire too. That’s one reason why it’s custom to laugh. Another is that, while we’ve figured out how to make buildings fireproof, we haven’t put as much effort into taking the oxygen out of the air.

The walk though my neighbourhood is rather mundane, not worth describing. Describing the scene is akin to saying that grass is brown or that water is warm. You already know what it looks like.

“Hahahahahah!”

It takes me an indeterminate amount of time to reach the nearest pub. The instant I crack the door open the laughter starts.

“Hahahahahahahahah!”

I slip inside and slam the door shut behind me.

“…”

I spot my gang over in the corner, my drink already set for me. They knew I was coming, they always know. It’s a routine I never intend to keep but always do.

“Ay, look who it is!” one of them says as I take my seat.

“That’s my guy!” another says as I take a sip of my beer.

Some more banter is passed around the table as I’m encouraged to get the full drink into me before kick-off. They already had a second one on the way. I feel sick, I don’t like the taste of alcohol.

“Hahahahahahha!”

My group burst into laughter. It’s odd because it wasn’t preceded by the opening of the pub door but by the referee’s whistle on the TV.

One of them laughs directly at me, when he notices I haven’t joined in.

“What’s so funny?” I ask him.

“Look at the crowd.”

I hadn’t come down with the intention of paying much attention to the game, so I hadn’t looked up at the screen yet. When I do, I notice something odd. For such an important game, there are a lot of empty seats in the crowd.

“They run out of fans to extort?”

“Nah, restricted capacity today.”

“Why?”

“The stadium is on fire.”

The entire table bursts into laughter at this. When I look a bit closer, indeed the stadium has caught on fire.

“You’re really bringing down the mood bro.” the one closest to me says.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I get in now. Hahahahahah!”

“Hahahhahaha!”

I laugh along with them because I feel I have to. I’ve never felt such hostile intent from any of them before, though I’ve never once forgotten to laugh before now.

I spend the next 40 odd minutes getting more beer into me in attempt to lighten up. Every time the TV cameras catch a glimpse of the fire on screen I force out a laugh to keep pace with everyone. But I can’t shake the feeing that something is dreadfully wrong. The more I drink, the hotter I feel, until eventually my mind has convinced itself it can smell sizzling skin.

“Bwahahahahahahahhaah!”

I’m snapped out of my haze by a particularly boisterous laugh. As I join in, I look up to see what has roused such a reaction.

My voice catches in my throat. Patches of the grass have turned read, there are limbs and rubble all across one half of the pitch. One of the stands has collapsed, even now it’s obvious that many people have died and are dying.

But the players continue to play. One of them takes the ball at the halfway line and slaloms in between the bodies in his way. Everyone around me keeps laughing. A close up on the player in possession reveals he is laughing too.

I stop laughing too soon and everyone turns to face me with tears in their eyes.

“I’ve got to go!”

I run out of the pub, knocking things over as I do. I’m afraid of what they might do to me now that I’ve lost the ability to laugh.

***

I lost my sense of direction on my way home. I hadn’t noticed before, but it’s night-time or at least it’s dark. The sun isn’t in the sky. It just seems like it’s the middle of the day because the blue fire is burning so intensely.

I’m boiling inside my jacket, everyone started looking at me when I tried taking it off. They’re looking at me anyway because I’m not laughing. Every one of them, dressed for winter but hiding their eyes behind sunglasses. I’m so hot, I need to get home, I’m safe at home.

I’m starting to notice things I don’t want to. It’s not just the tops of buildings consumed by the fire, not just the trees or the roads. The people passing me by are on fire too, but they don’t seem to care.

“Heh heh heh heh!” an old woman on a Zimmer frame passes me by, her skin dripping off her face.

“Eheheheheeh!” a woman laughs down her phone, pushing a flaming pram in front of her. If there was a child in there before, it’s silent now.

I have to wonder, with everyone on fire, how are we keeping the fire outside of buildings?

***

“Welcome home dear.”

I got so lost that I found myself in the part of town where my mother resides. I’d never come here of my own volition; I haven’t been in a number of years.

Mother hasn’t left her house in years. She is one of the abnormals, someone who can’t laugh anymore. If you go outside without laughing, you catch on fire, that’s common knowledge.

My mother took it really hard when the fire reached us, even when it was figured out that laughing would stop the fire, she refused to laugh.

She was so worried about the fire killing her, she let it kill everyone around her.

“Hi mom…”

Before I can even say what I want to say, I’m hit by torrent of water. I had forgotten that mother had fitted hoses in every room of the house, just in case she ever caught on fire while inside, and to hose down anyone who entered her house.

They make the place stink, the carpet beneath my feet hasn’t been dry in years.

“It’s so good to see you, are you going to stay for dinner?”

She hoses herself down after she offers me dinner, something she does intermittently. I heard from my sister a couple of years back, she replaced her bed with a shallow pool of water, such is the extent of her fear.

“You don’t need to do that all the time.”

“Yes I do.”

“The world isn’t ending.”

“Yes it is.”

She douses herself with the hose and then me.

“Stop that!” I shout.

“Are you staying for dinner or are you leaving.”

I can’t go back outside right now.

“I’m staying.”

“Good, wait in the living room, I’ll make your favourite.”

Entering the living room, I see she’s fitted sprinklers to the ceiling, which leave the air more mist than anything else. I suppose it’s more cost effective than the constant hosing, which is now relegated to the halls.

Mother has left the TV on in multiple rooms, all on the same channel. The delay in the audio from TV to the other destroys my ability to think, it’s why I… it’s why I moved out long before the fire.

It’s turned to the news. The top stories are never about the blue fire, it’s always about newer red fires. I barely watch the news anyway; I don’t want to know more than I already do.

“Dinner is ready.”

I drag myself over to the table and see that mother has set out a frozen pizza for each of us. They’re still frozen.

“I thought you were making my favourite.”

“I did, it’s pizza.”

“You didn’t make it.”

“You like being cold, I thought you’d prefer it this way.”

Any other day I would’ve stormed out right now, I don’t have the will to put up with this. But I can’t go back outside.

I grab a steak knife from the cutlery drawer and start sawing into the pizza. After managing to separate a miniscule piece from the whole, I place it into my mouth. For a moment, it sticks to my tongue, but then it sizzles and melts. Something is dreadfully wrong with me.

“Breaking news!” “Breaking news!”

“Breaking news!” “Breaking news!”

All four TVs blare out the same alert one after the other.

“A dark hour for Europe as for the third time in as many decades, the eastern dictatorship has invaded the mainland. Will we again see destruction on the level of…”

I try to turn my mind away from it all. I have enough literal fires to worry about.

“That’s really awful isn’t it?” Mother says, through a mouthful of frozen pizza.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“How can you not talk about it, it’s so awful.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

“So you don’t think it’s serious? The invasion of another sovereign state? Does people dying only matter when it’s right in front of you?”

“I just can’t… I can’t think about it. I can’t afford to. I can’t think about it and I can’t laugh either.”

“If you can’t laugh then you should talk about it.”

“I can’t even think about it how do you expect me to talk about it!”

I notice I am holding the knife very firmly in my hand.

“You’re not taking the fires seriously enough!”

“I just want to live in a world without fire!” I snap.

“You live in a world that’s already on fire!”

“I told you I don’t want to talk about it!”

“I-“ before Mother can utter another word, the knife in my hand has cut out her tongue.

I don’t want to hear it anymore, I don’t want to think about it. I push her out of her chair and onto the ground. I stab her in the chest.

“Fire!” “Fire!”
“Fire!” “Fire!”

The TVs repeat their messages. I keep stabbing.

“Fire!” “Fire!”
“Fire!” “Fire!”

I keep stabbing her chest.

“Ha…”

I stab in between her ribs.

“Ha ha...”

I stab her through her neck.

“Ha ha haha…”

When I run out of places to stab on her front, I flip her over to stab at her back.

“Hahahahahaahahahahahahahahah!”

I can’t stop myself laughing now. It’s too funny. My mother is dead, people are dying and the world is on fire. Isn’t that funny? Isn’t that funny!

I get it now, I understand the feeling. Laugh at it all, there are no consequences to things that are funny. Funny things can’t harm you so just keep laughing. Keep laughing until the day you die.

My mouth is never going to close again. I’ll laugh all day, I’ll laugh in my sleep, I’ll laugh in my straight jacket, I’ll laugh in my grave.

As the blood continues to pour from my mother’s body, it forms a glistening pool beside me. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch my reflection. It contains within it a great irony, one that makes me laugh harder than I ever have before.

“Bwahahahahahahah!”

I can see it now. All this time, I was on fire too.