ashes, ashes [ella]

narrating [FAF5AA]
thinking [769099]
talking [AAE6FA]
others talking [331700]

"Sure, but where to?" she says.
I don't like this part, the choosing part and that. I just sort of wander. But I'm not going to mention that. I don't want to seem any spacier than everyone already thinks-knows I am.
So I shrug, and I make something up. "The yard, probably." Wait, maybe I should've picked somewhere else. The yard's gotten barren from everyone's fires..
"Or, uh, that vacant lot? I thought I'd go out back of the bakery to find some scraps to burn..."
I don't say anything more than that. I can feel the smoke, already. I want it in my lungs, I want to breathe it in.

She knows how it can be, the craving, at least I think she does. I hope. I've always thought it was something that happened to everyone in my family. Maybe I'm just a freak. But I knew that, of course. I'm never going to be the conventional definition of normal.

Chocolate probably doesn't like spending time with me like I like spending time with her.
The thought comes to me out of the blue. I think it's been there for a while, now, like a little tingly haze around the back of my brain. She probably would prefer spending time with people her own age. I don't mention it, though. Not yet. Maybe later.

narrating [FAF5AA]
thinking [769099]
talking [AAE6FA]
others talking [331700]

This is the thing about fire: I need it. It's a drug. Not in a literal sense, but every other way than that it's true. I can't be without it for too long without my skin starting to itch and my eyes starting to burn because I need it, I crave it deep under my skin in my bloodstream.
"We can do whichever, you can pick if you'd like. If not I like the vacant lot," she says. The vacant lot, then. I don't care where the fires are set. I just need them to be there. That's not healthy, I think. That's not how I am supposed to work. But in a way, I suppose it is in my blood. My whole family is this way. Some of them might be more conscious of it, maybe, or some might not have it as bad-but it's there in all of us. My brothers and my sisters and both my parents, we're all fire addicts like some people are addicted to drugs or alcohol or sex. Those things- I don't care about those things. Drugs are too expensive to bother with and alcohol just makes a good firestarter and sex is something that requires other people and emotional connections, and those-I don't like any of those. So it's fire. That's all I care about. Everything else can-can burn.

"Whelp, let's go."
And I am startled out of my thoughts by Chocolate's voice. This happens a lot.
"Yeah," I say as she brushes past me. My voice is oddly stiff. That always happens when I start daydreaming and then I go back to the real world. I follow her out the door, winding through the house hallways. It's a hodgepodge of rooms and materials and things, our house. As more and more children were born, my parents just added more and more rooms onto our house. It's pretty huge from that. My room's near the front, because it's part of the original structure. Cause I'm the oldest, see, and- never mind. I'm getting sidetracked.

We make it down the street and around a few turns back to the lot[stopping in the back of the house first, wordlessly grabbing scraps and things for kindling]. It's covered in a thin layer of dying grass-that happens a lot here. The plants don't grow well, probably something about all the coal dust in the air-
There are matches in my pocket. There are always matches in my pocket.
I've got the leftover packaging and things in my other hand. My left hand is in my pocket, fingers wrapped around the matches. It's a habit I have.
"Okay," I say. The matches feel like they are giving off warmth in my hand, reassuring me everything will be alright. The flames are coming. "Okay, let's burn."

And we don't talk when we pile the materials, and we don't talk when I strike the match and it feels so right in my hand, and when I drop the match and I watch the flames spread everything is okay. I am balanced again.