[thisislife]

“The trick,” he began, “is simple.” I could hardly believe so, especially coming from such a withered and taxed man. He worked some moisturizer into his cracking hands as he continued. “You lie in waiting, for what seems like ages. It’s like you’re a snake in a cave. And outside the sun is rising and falling, and the sky is turning about, and night is churning from east to west to east again. But eventually the fire comes to you.”

“Then what?”

“Then it hurts. Fire can’t help but burn. But while you cook and writhe you focus, and deliberately – dreadfully deliberately – you descend. You fall through slaughter.” Then he started to cough and his chest creaked, slamming like a gate in the wind.

And that was the last time I spoke to him. And that was that.

The next time I saw him everything was quiet. All I remember is this: before they closed his eyes, they seemed strangely blackened; before they took him away, he look strangely blistered, as though kissed by cinders.