Blaze

While channel-surfing, Beyond Birthday happened to stop on a news program—a live report of a local building fire.

“Firefighters are now working to control the blaze, which is thought to have been caused by a short circuit within the walls of this residential home,” the reporter, Carol Peters, was saying. “Most of the family escaped unharmed, but the fire department is about to send in a special squad to rescue nine-year-old Emily Turner, who is trapped inside.”

A photograph of a young girl with brown, curly hair appeared on the screen, and Beyond looked into the girl’s green eyes. “Emily Turner, huh?” he muttered, his eyes darting around the room but always coming back to the photo on the screen. “Emily Turner…”

He would have to take Peters’ word for it, because the girl was already dead.

Peters reappeared on the screen, accompanied by a young, clean-shaven man. “And here we have Joseph Welles, one of the firefighters who is going in to rescue Emily. What do you have to say about the situation, Mr. Welles?”

“It should be a fairly simple rescue,” the firefighter said. “The fire doesn’t seem to be anywhere near her bedroom—she’s probably just hiding somewhere, scared…”

“Don’t go in there,” Beyond warned the screen as the firefighter spoke. “Don’t go, don’t go. You’ll be killed.”

Joseph Welles had less than ten minutes of life left. There was no doubt that he would die in the blaze.

“It’s pointless. She’s already dead!” Beyond said, his voice rising in agitation. His fingers, gripping his knees as usual, began to tap the rhythm of a frantic, unknown song. “What if I were there? What if I could tell you, what if you would believe me, Joseph Welles? How would you die then? A random falling timber? Suddenly collapsing, unseen, into the flames? Would that be kinder or would it be crueler? Kinder or crueler. Kinder or crueler. Teh heh heh heh heh.”

It was not the time for laughing, and the look on Beyond’s face certainly did not match the sounds crackling out of his mouth. His expression was a pained tribute to futility—the futility of rescue squads, of heroism, of human life.

“Teh heh, heh heh, heh heh.”

He laughed because he didn’t know what else to do, and he laughed because wasn’t this ironic, in its own way? Ironic enough to laugh about. Teh heh heh.

…But it wasn’t, really.

In a single motion, Beyond shut the television off and buried his head in his knees. Eyes wide open, he imagined Joseph Welles’ face and counted down to the brave, doomed man’s death; then he let the flames rise and rise within his mind until all the memories of Joseph Welles and Emily Turner were destroyed in the blaze.