M Sellars: Never Burn A Witch

Fire.

The old man could smell it, even over his own unwashed stench. The scent of fuel being relentlessly consumed by the ravages of flame. And where there was fire, there would be warmth. Each end of the pavilion housed a large fire pit, vented by a brick chimney. The Parks and Recreation Department had built it that way, so families could seek shelter against a sudden rain and still enjoy their Sunday cookout. The old man knew this because he had been chased away from this shelter only months before by shouting picnickers. Picnickers who selfishly assumed they owned the park on weekends. Angry people. Frightened people. People who didn’t care about him the way his beautiful Tracy did. But it was wintertime now, and there shouldn’t be any picnickers in the park. It was the middle of the night, too. No, there definitely shouldn’t be any angry people here now.

The old man hugged his ratty topcoat tightly about his body once again and started across the frozen landscape, slitting his eyes against the biting wind and crystalline lumps of blowing snow. He shuffled as quickly as he could on cold-anesthetized feet, occasionally tripping over them for their lack of feeling.

One-half measure of the distance across the frigid ground, a sharp sound reached his ears, and the old man came to a stumbling halt. A slamming sound. The sound of a large metal door being quickly shut. He stood in the open, confused, not knowing whether to retreat or press forward. No one should be here in the middle of a frostbitten February night. It just didn’t make sense. The slamming noise was soon followed by the sound of an engine starting and was in turn chased by the disharmonious wrenching of improperly meshed gears. On the opposite side of the pavilion, a large, boxy shape moved in the parking lot. A black panel van-greyed with a patina of salt and winter road grime-shone briefly in the flickering firelight. The old man watched as the van disappeared behind the rows of trees and finally re-appeared at the distant park entrance. Only then did the driver switch on the headlights before turning onto the street and accelerating slowly away.

The old man watched until the dusky red tail-lights were no longer visible and audibly reminded himself to tell Tracy about the incident when he saw her on the television again. He was sure she would think it just as strange as he did, but she was smart. She would understand and explain it to him as she always did.

The yellow-orange radiance was flickering madly now, and it belonged only to him. He gleefully giggled and followed with a raspy coughing fit as he pressed forward to the shelter.

Warmth and light filled the pavilion, emanating from the fire pit at the near end. The old man shuffled gratefully into its embrace, standing with his back to the rising column of flame. The fire crackled and sputtered; the fuel whistled a dying wail as it fed the blaze. It was obvious that the fire had been recently set, as the pungent odor of kerosene insinuated itself into his nostrils. That was good. He would get to enjoy the whole fire instead of just the dying embers.

Intermingled with the sharp scent of the blaze, the old man imagined he could smell meat cooking on a grill, and that made him feel hungry. That was far too much to hope for, however, and that aroma, he was certain, had to be a delusion.

Yellow-white light painted itself playfully around the interior of the brick shelter, casting oblique shadows and illuminating the sturdy, wooden picnic tables. On the surface of the table directly in front of the ever-increasing blaze, a thick, rectangular shape was carefully positioned. For a brief moment, lucid curiosity flitted through the old man’s rapidly misfiring neurons, and he shuffled forward to inspect the eccentricity. A book. Black and leather-bound with gold embossing on the cover. He picked up the book and brought it closer to his face then squinted carefully to read the words impressed on the cover. Slowly, he mouthed the letters, remembering somewhere in the back of his booze-pickled grey matter that he knew how to read.

“H-O-L-Y-B-I-B-L-E.”

Holy Bible. He knew this book. He remembered his mother making him read from it when he was just a child. He remembered also that none of its promises had ever come true, for him at least.

A thin strip of white ribbon, attached to the binding, protruded from the book. It appeared to have been placed there with great purpose. A bookmark. The old man fumbled with deadened fingers to open the leather-bound scripture and pulled the place marker aside. By the firelight he could see that a passage had been deliberately highlighted. He rubbed the back of his chapped hand across his tired, clouded eyes and concentrated on the words. He sounded them out under his breath, which wasn’t easy since his mouth was still watering from the imagined smell of grilling meat. “EX-O-DUS. TWEN-TEE-TWO EIGHT-TEEN. THOU – SHALT – NOT – SUFF-FER – A – WITCH – TO – LIVE.”

The old man stared at the passage and tried to understand what its significance could possibly be. His eyes hurt, and all this concentrating was giving him a headache. He would much rather think about what Tracy wasn’t wearing under that sweater she had on tonight. Concentrating on THAT didn’t hurt. It felt good. REALLY good. Maybe thinking about Tracy would keep his mind off his hunger too, for he would almost swear he could smell burning meat. With a lecherous cackle, he closed the book and stuffed it into his pocket.

“Tracy, Tracy. I love Tracy. Tracy with the big, big tits!” he sang gleefully to himself, making cupping gestures at his own chest as he wriggled in place while turning slowly back to the warmth of the fire.

He pulled out the treasured pint bottle and drained the remaining brown liquor down his throat, almost choking because he forgot to quit singing his pornographic ditty before swallowing. He wiped the spittle from his face with the back of his thin sleeve and coughed raspily once again. When he lowered his gaze to the fire, his mouth fell open and the contents of his stomach, cheap whiskey and bile on the whole, were propelled to the concrete with a liquid splatter. Putrid smells rose steamily from the vomit to mix with the foul reek of sizzling flesh. The old man fell heavily to his knees and pitched forward, heaving twice more. When he finally looked back up, the body of the charred human being was still there. Still there, teeth grinning at him morbidly where the flesh was even now searing away.

Out in the darkness, wet clumps of snowflakes streamed heavily downward from the low blanket of clouds that covered the city.

I rolled over in the darkness and tugged the blanket up over my shoulders, but only after a brief, lethargic struggle with Salinger, our overstuffed, under-exercised Himalayan. His mild protestation came as a short pause in his otherwise incessant purring, coupled with a wimpish “mew” one would expect from a kitten, not from a full-grown cat. My ears further discerned that the wind was sighing forlornly through the leafless branches of our tree-lined yard, audibly bringing the outside chill into the bedroom.

I shivered slightly at the thought and assumed that Tracy Watson, the Eyewitness News meteorologist, had probably nailed her forecast squarely on the head yet again. If I were brave enough to crawl from the warmth of the bed and look out the window, I presumed I would be witness to the snowfall she predicted as well. Her uncanny accuracy would most likely be capturing her another American Meteorological Society Award in the near future. Not that this fact was all that important to me, but half-sleep has a tendency to make one concentrate on things that would normally flit past unheeded.

With a contented sigh, I let the thoughts of snow, and sub-freezing temperatures, and other people’s achievement awards drain from my mind, dwelling instead on the comfortable warmth of the heated waterbed.