Fire is as uncontrollable as life itself. It flickers up, has a life of it’s own. It swallows you, brings you into its depths, consumes your very soul until you can’t feel it anymore. You drink in its toxins, it breathes in you, like no other thing has. My father used to say that art was the fire of the soul. Maybe. But fire is the fire of my soul.

Enter candles. It started simply. Some candle wax being poured on my hand. I liked to watch it dry and harden, and then I could peel it off. It never hurt much. A quick sting, and then the pain was gone. It got old awful quick. I progressed quickly after the wax. Holding my hand over the fire, feeling the heat, until I would thrust my hand into the flames and allow them to lick the flesh, to eat away it’s tender areas, to create the visible blackness I felt in my soul. It hurt, oh yes. The pain drips into your stomach, turns it, makes your lungs quake in fear. It slides into your intestines, squeezing and twisting.

Then it slithers away as you pull your hand away, with the burns to remind you that you are NOTHING. You may think you exist, on one level, but in truth you are as important as a single grain of sand. Not even. You don’t exist for a purpose, or a reason. You were born to die. You were born NOTHING and will die NOTHING.

The fire reminds you that you may be nothing, but you can still feel. Fire is emotion. Fire rises, and fire dies, and fire reminds you of all that is real. You are NOTHING, but you are flesh and bones still.

I got bored of simply dipping my hands into the fire. I wanted more. I wanted every part of me to feel that passion, the desire, the pulses of fear and pain and something so much MORE than all of that. MORE than words can describe, MORE than anyone can imagine. It was a sense of being, MORE than you or me or anyone can dream of. I wanted to feel that all over. Forget the candles.

Enter fireplace. It was a pretty normal fireplace. Nicely made, well kept by my romantic parents who loved to sit in front of it on a stormy night. I was conceived by that fireplace. Maybe even in it, my parents loved it so much. Ironic, yes? Born from the ashes, I returned.

I wasn’t really paying much attention to what was going on. I remember stepping into that small area, smelling the thickness of fires past, seeing the charred rocks around me, feeling the ashes between my bare toes. I stripped off my clothing and used it to help the fire grow around me. And the fire grew, LORD how it grew! It covered my body with a lovers caress, that burning sensation that you wish would stop, but you wish would continue at the same time. It kissed me, held me, comforted me, and burned me. It hurt, and I couldn’t stand the heat, for the first time in my life. I couldn’t leave, though. It held me tight, those crimson hands holding mine, begging me to stay. When you look into the eyes of the one you love most, how can you refuse? I felt part of my soul drip away, just like the wax on that very first candle. Sliding gently, gracefully down the long, white stick, clinging tight like a tear to a mourning widower.

I guess something happened. The fire was pleasuring me, giving me more pleasure than sex ever could. I must have jolted from the sheer joy and pleasure the fire provided me, and sent a log out into the living room rug. Allie, my little sister, was sitting there. I was too far gone to help her, and the fires rose up to consume not only one soul, but two.

Enter hell.