Amy sits at the top of the staircase in the warm darkness. With her feet on the last step, she rests her head on her crossed arms which in turn rest on her knees. Her blue silk pajamas give off the faintest shine from the small amount of light drifting up from downstairs. Her parents are talking like they usually do late at night. If this is like the other nights, they will leave soon. Amy doesn’t know where they go, but it leaves her by herself and free to do what she loves most.
It’s a game. A game with no rules and no goal. Just to have fun is to win and it’s only over when her parents get home and Amy dashes back into her room to avoid detection.
Quietly, Amy wishes that they would hurry up and leave. A few weeks earlier, she had fallen asleep on the steps, awakening only when her parents carried her into bed. She thought she would be caught for sure when they kept asking her why she was sleeping out there. Amy closes her eyes and waits less than patiently. She hears the faint jingle of keys and the scraping sound of chairs being pushed back from the table.
Slowly standing, Amy descends two or so steps and cranes her neck around the corner. The squeak of the door opening is then followed by a soft click and then another of the lock turning.
Amy sighs with relief and imagines her game. She flows through the motions with her hands, imagining the sound and feel and the smell. It has been so very long since the last time and she can resist no longer.
Her socked feet make only the slightest shuffle on the bare wood. The eight feet from the stairs to her parents bedroom is walked deliberately slow, to savor the feeling, like the moments before opening a present. The door is ajar slightly and makes no creak when opened. Slowly creeping in the dark towards the dresser underneath the window through which faint moonlight filters, illuminating the small corner drawer that holds the prize she seeks, Amy can barely contain her joy.
Pausing in front of the drawer, Amy cannot help but forget the punishment she received for the first time she played the game. Her heart is harder now, she has no fear. Fluidly she opens the drawer, fingers immediately moving to the back left corner. She feels thin cardboard against her fingers and withdraws, with a smile, a small box of matches. The last time she had lit a match had been about one year earlier, when she was only eight. “Gotcha.” she says aloud, talking to no one but the box as if she was playing hide-and-seek and had just found the last player. The box gives a pleasant rattle as she shakes it. She holds it to her nose and imagines the smells it is about to make.
Amy opens the matchbox and pulls one out. She spins it between her thumb and forefinger, admiring its round perfection, the same on all sides. Holding the box at eye level, she drags the match head along the rough side of the box. Small sparks fly off and disappear almost a quickly. A small smile spreads across her face. She turns the match slightly and pulls it across the side of the box again. She starts to giggle. A small, mouth closed type of giggle. She turns the match again and repeats the motion, now she is laughing quietly.
Her face suddenly turns serious. Tightening her grip of the end of the match, Amy’s hand flies across the box igniting the match in a blaze of miniature fury. The heat and light assails her fingertips making them glow red. She stands paralyzed and awestruck just like the first time she lit a match. The sweet smoke fills her nostrils and makes her eyes water slightly. The tiny flame shrinks away as she breathes out and bows a graceful bow towards her as she breathes in. The flames works its way down the match stick slowly.
The smoke from the match drifts slowly, lazily upwards, being sucked towards the ceiling fan. The fan turns patiently, chopping the smoke to pieces as soon as it is in range. The grey-black mist plays and dances, twisting about and inward on itself, a spineless serpent of ash and rain clouds. The gray rises upward, carelessly and without regard for its impending doom. She walks in slow circles to the rhythm of the fan, one step for each whoosh she hears. She steps to the side of the bed where the air current is strongest, watching the smoke bend in on itself.
Amy stands mesmerized by this sleepy dance. Letting out a breath, she sends the smoke to pieces across the ceiling of her parents bedroom, the playful vines are stretched so thin that they snap and pull apart. They are replaced moments later with new ones. Amy places her finger a few inches over the match, feeling the heat of the smoke gently lick her finger tip. The smoke divides itself as if her finger was a knife, creating two dragons of cinders that wrap around each other in a display of smoggy affection, a dark and foreboding caduceus.
Amy is so entranced by the playful smoke that she does not notice that the flame has almost entirely eaten its way down the match, the small flame having consumed all within reach, and become much closer to her fingers. In a split second, the fire laps against her thumb. Amy lets out a cry of surprise and pain, releasing the match and jamming her injured thumb into her mouth. The match tumbles downward with the fire clinging onto the wood for dear life. Should its grip slacken, it with be thrown to its death. Amy watches the burning stick fall toward the bed. All she can think about is how dim it has become.
The match has become a few glowing embers as a result of its perilous fall. It clings to life. Amy brings her face in close, her hands cupped around the dying match as if to comfort it in its final moments. She brings her hands in closer as the light fades. Where it lies, the pillowcase singes to a dark black. Moments from death, the fire makes a desperate gambit.
Throwing all its remaining energy towards the pillowcase the flame digs a foothold. Amy’s gentle breaths which, a moment ago, spelled death, now feed the fire as it abandons it’s broken vessel that it had come to life upon. Amys’ breath pushes the flame forward. Will renewed, the fire gorges itself upon the pillowcase’s fibers.
Amy jerks her head back with a gasp; The small ember has renewed itself and sprung to life once more. Like water running across a tabletop, the fire spreads, advancing outwards in awkward unpredictable clumps that spring up like wild weeds. Amy takes a step back and regards the fire with strange interest, like a scientist watching in fascination at what others would say is barbaric. Like a lion ripping the tendon and muscle off a gazelle.
A black twister begins to form near the ceiling. The fan spins it into a spiral but it does not diminish, only grow. Amy begins to feel lightheaded. The fire has become fuzzy. Can fire be fuzzy? she thinks. She barely notices that she is coughing, harsh raspy coughs that burn her throat. She can’t understand how the floor has gotten so close to her face. She releases a final cough and slips into smoggy, clouded dreams.
Amy wakes from her rough slumber to the hard wood of her parents bedroom. She was having a nightmare in which filthy snakes tried to squeeze the life from her neck. When she breathed in they wound themselves tighter. She cannot move or speak, and all her cries come out as hoarse whispers.
Pulling her arms in front of her, she pushes herself to her feet, rubbing her eyes which itch for some reason. She can’t recall why she was sleeping on the floor. Her eyes widen as she feels the heat on her right side. Match, she thinks and turns her head to come face to face with a raging inferno. What began as only a pillow set alight has crawled across the bed spread, engulfing all of it. The mirror on the side table reflects brilliant yellows and reds and projects them onto the far wall.
Amy stands up quickly but her vision blurs as the blood rushes to her head. She staggers, gagging on the foul, ashen air. Her eyes burn and water. She clenches them shut but loses her balance and falls forward, toward the fire.
Her hands make contact with the bedpost which while it is a good foot from the edge of the fire, has become very hot. There is a sizzling sound as her palms touch the metal and she screams while pushing herself away, landing on the hard floor.
Perhaps it is the size of the blaze or that it had all started as a harmless game, that she cannot understand where it has come from. I didn’t do it, is her only thought. She does not understand how fire works. She does not understand how a match so small could have made a fire this big. The surprise is pushed aside by fear when Amy realizes that she could be in big trouble for being near this. Although only nine, she knows that she would not enjoy punishment and that is enough incentive for her to leave.
She stands up quickly but is blinded by the smoke and drops down to the floor again. She crawls across the floor to the door which is closed. Not knowing the dangers of an oxygen hungry fire, she raises herself off the floor and opens the door. The back draft caused by the influx of air from the hall and makes the fire lunge toward Amy with a vicious roar. Amy’s back is assailed by the heat as she runs into the hallway. Her socked feet slide on the floor and threaten to make her fall, but she runs down the carpeted stairs without slowing.
She knows her parents will stop her and find out why she is out of bed so late. Have they come back yet? she wonders. She slows to a sneaking pace and enters the kitchen. Empty. She can’t hear any voices from where she is, and wanders into the living room which is also empty.
Suddenly, a loud piercing beep sounds from upstairs. She doesn’t know what it is but it is loud noises like these that attract attention to things that usually result in punishment. Amy has become only more concerned with not being found. She heads for the door, unlocking it quickly and runs into the night.
Amy runs across the lawn, soaking her socks in the wet grass, and through the gate. She turns right but stops when she is several houses down and looks back. The window to her parents room is visible. The fire itself cannot be seen but the ceiling is lit and seems to flicker randomly.
Sirens can be heard in the distance but they are getting louder. Amy is at a loss of where to go. She steps backward behind a phone pole and watches from the shadows. The sirens grow louder as the engine draws closer. Amy looks back and sees the red and white flashing lights as it flies up the street and screeches to a halt in front of her house. Men in yellow jackets and helmets jump off and run towards the house. She follows with her eyes as they thunder through the gates.
Amy jumps as a heavily gloved hand descends on her shoulder. A tall fireman kneels down so he is at eye level.
“What are you doing out here little girl? Where do you live?”
Amy can only turn and point to her house.
“That’s your house!? Where are your parents? Are they in there?”
She turns her head from side to side slowly, keeping her eyes locked to the fireman's.
“Look at your hands! What did you do to them? They look burned.”
The fireman takes both her hands in his giant gloved hand. Indeed, there are horrible marks on her fingertips and palms. In the dim light they look as if her skin has melted and reformed seconds later.
“DId you try to put out the fire yourself?”. He doesn’t bother to wait for a response. “What a brave girl you are! You’re going to be a fire fighter some day!”