suddenly remember that I have to open the window to prevent carbon monoxide from building up
in the room. I push it open just the slightest crack, but that’s enough for the gale outside to rush in
and attack. The fire gutters, dips. I must feed the flames. But the only other books in the house are
in Dad’s study, and I don’t have time to break down its locked door. I look around me for things to
burn. Photos. Certificates. The laboratory discharge notices, still lying on the doorstep.
I don’t have a choice.
Tongues of flame leap greedy and wild as I add them in, the paper charring so rapidly that
I cannot tell where pigment ends and print begins. As the fire grows a small part of my heart
warms up from its previously frozen state. But the fire is not strong enough to warm me through.
I need to add more.
I have heard before that cassette tapes make good fuel. Now’s a good time to test it out.
One in the kitchen. One in the living room. One by the door. One in my room.
And the final tape, in my parents’ room.
The door is hardwood, heavy and dark, but the house is old, and it falls easily to a few kicks. I
hurry forward, into air scented half a decade old. The bed and wardrobe and curtain and sill have
not changed one bit, but I have eyes only for the cassette player. Open, eject, and I am cradling all
of my past in my hands.
It all seems so absurd now. To think I had placed such value on five reels of iron oxide! A
laugh bubbles uncontrollably from deep inside me. I want to get rid of them. I want to be free of
their neverending loops. I want to find my own place in the present.
I cast them into the fire. Its streams of red and orange and gold fan and spark, as if this was
what it had been waiting for from the very beginning. Embers soar high, printing scorch marks
on the ceiling. I sit back at a safe distance and close my eyes for just a moment, and the fire’s
glow is warm through my eyelids. Its outline twists and morphs and begins to grow, though
when I open my eyes it is still burning through the tapes at a gradual, cheery rate. I close my
eyes again. It is a tower of light now, an unending blaze no more unpleasant than the noonday
sun, and it continues to spread in joyful flourishes of pops and sparks. Even though my eyes are
closed, I can faintly see the shadow of a house enclosing the flame, my house, and the fire flaring
higher and wider and greater and brighter until the entire house is enveloped in light. There’s
snow around the house, a field of featureless white, and the flame bursts outward in an eruption
of cosmic radiance. When at last it is clear enough to see, the snow has all melted and gone.
I open my eyes. The fire is dying, despite having only consumed half the cassette tapes. I
guess they aren’t good fuel after all.
Nothing will happen if I continue to stay in this house. Nothing will change if I do not change
it myself. I will remain forever trying to sing the strains of a long-forgotten time.
I walk out the living room to the front door. I no longer hear the wind’s taunting. The world
outside and all its promises of hope beckon warmly to me.
I put on Dad’s walking boots and kick aside my slippers. I don’t need them anymore.
Grip. Twist. Pull. The door swings open to a dizzying cascade of snowflakes, crystalline and
resplendent as they whirl and fall.
I look back at my childhood home and adult prison. There are memories embedded in its very
walls, some happy, some sad, but all mine.
I will miss it.
Then my feet cross the threshold and I step out into the world.
