Nicholas Day - At the End of the Day I Burst into Flames

“Are you talking to a dead frog?”

“No.” I said.

“You’re that weirdo kid that falls down and shakes in class.”

“I’m not weird.”

“I heard you pee your pants when it happens.”

“Leave him alone,” said a voice from behind me.

It was Stephen. He lived in a different neighborhood, now, but still rode the same bus. We never gave each other any grief after his mom died. Once, Stephen cradled me while I had a seizure on the playground. He didn’t have to do that.

We both stared at that frog. It was another minute or two before Stephen finally spoke up.

“I’m sorry about the frog.”

The bus pulled up. We got on, sat next to each other and didn’t say a word. Stephen held my hand.

He didn’t have to do that, but I’m glad he did.

Every hour we changed class, and every hour I thought about that frog. I looked at a lot of faces, looked into people’s eyes and spied on their souls, listened to the slips and wisps of tongues on lips and teeth, but never once did I forget that frog. Never once did time slow down, never once did I see a shadowy figure step out of the folds of time. Bad thoughts and balled fists were offered here and there from bullies, but nasty as those things may be, they weren’t really any interest to me, so I ignored them.

And I thought about death.

“You’re not still thinking about that frog, are you?” Stephen asked me during lunch.

I shook my head. “I see it everywhere I look.”

“What is it about a dead frog, anyway?”

I looked at Stephen. I saw his mother standing in his eyes. She smiled at me. Her teeth were too white, too big, too many. Her skin looked like it fit all wrong. Something moved beneath her flesh. Stephen opened his mouth but all that came out was a scream.

It was my fault. My eyes had rolled up and my body shook. I think he held me.

I think he held me till I fell asleep.

It wasn’t the first time I woke up in the nurse’s office. Mamma sat beside me. Her hands cupped mine.

“Are you okay, Firecracker?”

“Mamma, do frogs have souls?”

She drew her hands away and held them in her lap. She looked at me, opened her mouth as if to say something. Her face filled with color and she put a hand over her mouth. I thought she was going to cry. Her color, her real color, came back. It was a funny kind of smile.

“Whatever made you ask that question?”

“I had a strange dream.”

“Dreams aren’t real, baby. Dreams are all in your head.”

“Are nightmares real?”

She laid her hand on my chest. “Stop,” she said. “Just stop.”

I saw the disappointment and I looked away. Mamma hardly looked at me like that, like I wasn’t her son. I may as well have been a stranger that had stolen her love, and I was so scared that she would ask for it back. Mamma meant the world to me. Of course she had no answers to give to me. That didn’t stop me. I took a hold of her hand.

“If you had a soul, Mamma, you could give it to me and I’ll take it away.”

Mamma stood up. She looked across the room, and for the first time, I realized that the nurse sat only a few feet away from us. The face she made at Mamma was something else. Mamma just waved a hand at the lady and shook her head.

“He’s fine, just a little delirious from the episode.”

“Right,” said the nurse.

“Come on, Firecracker. We’re going home.”

I got in Momma’s bright-red van and she played “Vanished” by Crystal Castles on repeat, all the way home. She did that a lot, played the songs she loved over and over. I tried to imagine what she’d look like on fire and the thought gave me a shiver. What kind of music would a fire listen to on repeat?

I didn’t want to find out.

Sunrise was streaks of warm color and birdsong. The wind chime on our back porch betrays the silent breeze and its music follows me as I walk back into the house and tip toe inside. I leave the door open. The breeze gently haunts the kitchen curtains and the tablecloth.

I make a cup of coffee just as quietly as I can but it’s not for me. It’s for Emily. I put in two scoops of sugar because I know that she likes it sweet. The breeze pushes in much harder than before and stirs up all the comforting scents of the house and our life. I take a deep breath and then a second one. This time I close my eyes.

It is the last time I’ll ever be in this house. I can’t stay here anymore. I don’t want them to see the fire. I may have to hide in the woods or in an abandoned building downtown or somewhere near the Mississippi, though none of that troubles me because all I need to do is think about Emily. And think of Stephen. They are all the pleasure I have ever known.

And then I think of the Box Waltz and the snow. A perfect moment. What was her name?

The coffee steams as I place the cup atop Emily’s nightstand. The chimes continue but I drown them out by closing the door to our room. She stirs when I sit on the bed and startles when I lightly shake her from the deep sleep. I gently cup her mouth and put a finger to my lips. Her eyes focus on me and she slowly moves my hand away to show that she understands.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“I’m heading to Wood River,” I said. “Need to run some errands. But I didn’t want to leave without saying I love you.”

Stephen had been in and out of mental health facilities for years, and that was well before his mother died. He told me he was a bit violent as a toddler, but it wasn’t the violence that landed him a permanent seat in the local psychiatrist’s office. It had been his silence. He told me once that his parents suspected a severe learning disability, that even the doctors thought so, on account of the fact that he barely spoke a word the first five years of his life. Not that you’d know it now.

Stephen speaks a lot. To me, at any rate. His voice is soft, as if he’s talking you off of a ledge or something, and the way he says stuff, well, you hear it all, every syllable. Perfect pronunciation.

Turned out he didn’t bother speaking because he was too busy thinking. It was all numbers, he told me. Numbers was his first language. He could do long division in his head before the words mommy or daddy passed his lips. He was so good at math that the rest of us kids just couldn’t compete, and pretty soon the teachers at school figured out that they couldn’t compete either. They were afraid of him. Us kids were too stupid to be afraid, and it was easy to think Stephen was just some big dork, but one day our math teacher, Mrs. Clark, decided to see just how smart he was, and after that we stopped thinking of Stephen as one of us.

I mean, he looked like one of us, sure, but he was operating on a different level. Kids, like dogs, can smell fear; it’s how bullies choose their marks. Imagine, then, what it was like to recognize that Mrs. Clark wasn’t just afraid of Stephen, but terrified of him. To a bunch of squirrelly kids, teachers were practically our parents for eight hours every day of the week, a bunch of omnipotent beings that demanded homework, respect and subordination.

And then, one day, Mrs. Clark asked Stephen to recite his multiplication tables.

“Where do you want me to start?” he asked.

“You can start at the beginning. One through twelve, please.”

“How about I start at eighty-two?”

“Please, do as you’re told Stephen.”

“One hundred sixty-four. Two hundred forty-six. Three hundred twenty-eight. Four hundred ten.”

“That’s enough, young man.”

“Four hundred ninety-two. Five hundred seventy-four—”