After / Fire

The 'Isdal woman' was found wedged between rocks on a trekking ground known as Death Valley.

Her hands were positioned as if she was shielding herself from a few blows. Investigators found more than fifty sleeping pills in her system, not all of which had completely digested. But the strangest part, still with no explanation until today, was the fact that her front was completely burned. The family who found her said the smell of rotting flesh was overwhelming.

They found a suitcase at a nearby station that linked to her, and came up with a few theories, but the most popular one was her being a spy who had to saunter to and fro different identities to escape people who were trying to kill her.

They couldn't find a reason for anyone to set her face on fire. Suicide was plausible, with the thought of her being unable to pour gasoline down her own back. But the fire didn't explain the pills, and neither did the pills explain the fire.

I thought of it in my own personal way. A year ago, maybe more than, I was trying to find 'the perfect way to die'. I never thought about fire, because that was what I always thought I'm made of, but I thought of pills. Sleeping pills, as an ode to my love-hate relationship with sleep.

The authorities never thought about it personally, or in a way that defied, I don't know, common sense. I put on her shoes and understood, just a little, why she would have tens of sleeping pills in her stomach and be charred all down the front (if it was really suicide and not murder).

I wish I could talk more without spoiling my own book that I'm writing. But one of my main characters had to do something in order to take the next big step that she did, and it is only now, months after I wrote that scene, that I realise how parallel it is to my present.

The significance of fire is obvious, being the place that any regular person is afraid of. I was told not to be comfortable in it, not to hold on to sparks that could only cause trouble, not to be the flame that caught on people's hair and clothes. Despite doing all that, I never realised how dangerous it was. How dangerous I was.

For once, I want to hold the blame. But I have people telling me not to shoulder the weight, convinced that I am still the victim. Maybe they are still unfortunate enough to have not been hurt by me, despite being there from the time I was born. Maybe they just weren't in the sun long enough to be burned by it.

There is a reason for everything I write. I do this best because there is no one interrupting me, to tell me I am wrong or I don't make sense or that I was the victim. He is just a bird and IamfireIamfireIamfire