More than Any Jewel, Love...

They say every cloud has a silver lining — and apparently that goes even for thick ember-y black ones fuming off of the charred remains of what may have once been roughly classified as food. In any other version of these events, Don would have been breathing in the fumes from the charred plate on the floor and hacking his esophagus out. But in this particular scenario — the exact linear sequence of less-than-ideal occurrences that had screwballed everything into terrible motion and ended with me getting lit on fire — he was laughing. Big time. Cackling all high-pitched, like a hyena on helium. Gripping his gut he was guffawing so hard. At me. Me and my flaming head. Turns out schadenfreude was kind of his thing all along. Who knew? Not me. And what kind of clown did it make him that the misfortune of others tickled his funny bone so much? Sorry. Don’t know the answer to that one either.

What I do know, beyond any doubt, was that at the end of it all, when it all went up in smoke? It wasn’t just Don laughing. Lou was too. It was the first hint he’d shown of a smile since he’d parted with his facial hair. Gotta admit, the guy looked better without it. I don't think he would've agreed with me though.

Fence was laughing too, the same way he did when coach kicked us off the team that day, red in the face and screaming in ours for always being the complete [REDACTED]ups that he always knew that we always knew that everyone and their grandmother always knew that we always were. I always hated that team. And that stupid sport. Somehow, in that moment, I knew Fence hated it too. Baseball sucks. Baseball can kick rocks. Baseball can stick its head in a blender and hit frappe. And there was something else I realized just then too, don’t ask me how, I just did: that me and Fence were always gonna be best friends. No matter what.

But anyway, I can’t stop there. Lou and Fence weren’t the only ones. They weren’t the only ones at all. Stopping dropping and rolling for dear life, I noticed Al and Rachel and all the rest of my coworkers off to the side, loitering near the door to the kitchen where they had a good vantage point of the action. Where they could watch it all play out, watch it all crash and burn and fume. “It all” being me. There was a fire extinguisher on the wall right by them. We’d installed it there to bring everything up to code before the big day today. Not one of them made to help me with it. They were all just laughing along merrily, Al wiping away the tears pooling in her eyes like a proud parent. She waved at me and then sort of clutched both hands at her heart. She reminded me of my mom. It was at that exact moment that I decided I needed to give up on her. That “me and her” was never going to happen, romantically speaking. That it was never meant to be. It wasn’t like I had done anything to make it happen in the first place, but for some reason or other, it still felt like a burden had been lifted from me. Like my whole body had been lightened. Maybe it was cause I was currently technically dying, or, more specifically, being burned alive. Who knows?

And then there was Replica. My one and only little sister. I don’t think she’s ever going to read this. But if she does, somehow, someday, I want her to know this: Replica, I was there when you were born. I was with you even before you were born, when all you were was a bulge in Mom’s belly, growing bigger by the day. I have known and will continue to know you for literally your entire life. At that time, as I rolled around like a maniac on the floor trying to put myself out, you were smiling. You may not have even realized it, but I did. It wasn’t big or anything. Just a little smile. Just ever so slightly, so that you’d just barely notice even if you were looking close, the ends of your mouth were slowly pinching up into a tiny little grin, a grin the likes of which I hadn’t seen on you for a long time. A grin like that time when we were kids smashing rows of marching ants in the park, giggling as we pressed them into tiny black stains on the pavement, and all of a sudden you broke out crying, no warning at all, just tears, “Stop it, stop it, don’t do it anymore,” and when I asked why you told me through big gulps of air, “Because we have to let them live!” And I did, remember? I stopped. I really did. Because you were right. It was a grin like the one you smiled after that, after we both stopped killing those ants. After you finished crying your tears, and wiped them away yourself.

You didn’t look like the Grinch at all.

Oh yeah. That was that green guy’s name. The Grinch. I finally remembered. And it only took getting set on fire to get there. That was just something else, wasn’t it?

Here’s something else: as I flailed wildly, on fire, accruing third-degree burns by the second — crazy as it sounds? I kind of felt a little something tugging at the ends of my lips too.

To be concluded... next time!