Unlike Monshreve, I made it in the woods for quite a while. I’ll admit that every loud noise or hiss rustling the leaves did more than prick up my fright and frighten my prick. But still, I managed to tap quite a few trees along my merry way, and I had great confidence in the batch. The forest was full of healthy looking maples and stoic birches, nobody losing their cool, and I was feeling pretty damn good about myself.

What is it about the nature of reaching a zenith in confidence and success that summons forth any number of cosmic bitch slaps to knock us back to an acceptable level of diffidence?

The legends are true. The legends are true. Every bit as true as every yarn spun in that community, and possibly a little more. I was checking the progress of some of the buckets when Monshreve made his appearance. I hadn’t enough time to recoil or jump as I turned and he wrapped all too solid fingers around my forearms. As his grip burned into the flesh of my arms he brought his face close to mine, what was left of it anyway. If anything, I knew where the fatal gunshot had found its mark. He summoned his strength and hissed, cold and harsh,

“My work, my burden, is thine own.

Onward you will carry it and be the fire starter.

Save a world that will hate you,

It’s Savior.

This, you shall do.”

When I came to, I was still in the clearing, a spilled bucket of sap beside me, performing a marvelous impersonation of blood for three terrifying seconds. You know, I had thought I had fallen. Hit a root, lost my mind, something. I thought I had actually fallen. Then I saw the marks. My arms told the story that my brain vehemently denied. Struggling for footing, I took hold of the nearest maple. I had hardly made contact with the bark before the fire spread. First tentatively, and then ravenously from my fingertips.

I wrenched back in horror, grabbing for dirt to shovel on the blaze. No good, I ran. Every branch I swatted from my face, the logs I vaulted over, the undergrowth I pushed my way through, all met the same fate, until soon the path behind me was a gaping maw of destruction. Even still, the dire condition of my situation, my curse, didn’t hit until I made it home. I grabbed the doorknob, melting it, and kicked through the already ashen remains of my door. I proceeded to destroy all I had built up and hoarded away within. My life, my money, my home burned deftly on all ends and I sat on the floor. I sat in what was once a meager living room, watching my James Dean picture smolder, apathetically into ruin. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, eh Jimmy?

As I watched the last remnants of the puppy dog eyes sink into the flame, something within broke. I screamed, cried with the anguish of my whole soul and the sudden loss of the meager treasures that I had fed it with. I stumbled around in a blind fury before sinking to my knees just outside my back door, the sounds of cracking and collapsing wood and the ever present call of the flames beleaguering me at my back. With a last cry, I pressed my hands firmly to my chest, digging in my fingers and clenching my teeth. Obediently my shirt and neighboring pants caught fire, as for my skin: nothing.

Monshreve had delivered his mission, and his curse along with it. And this time, death was not to stop it. What had originally broke within disappeared completely, leaving nothing but the message, the mission, and the power. I traveled into tow a dirty, naked mess and wrapped my arms around the gas pump that I had used for the past three years, waiting only a few moments before the blast. As the surrounding pumps went up, car alarms and screams lit up the air in a frenzied symphony, and I walked farther into town.



Each building, each life, it becomes easier and easier for me. I don’t eat, I still might physically be able to sleep, but I don’t. I’ve heard curses, screams, and pleading demands of why wherever I go. I’ve stood in the middle of infernos and explosions and still my hearing refuses to give out, and so they continue. I continue. I continue because I’m starting to see the signs, they are small, and they are nothing I could ever tell you. The forests go the easiest, it’s been dry for a few months and most of the work isn’t even mine to do, save the burden. I’d like to tell you I’m sorry, but maybe I’m not. All there is is the mission and the promise of an end.

This summer the temperature here is 112.