Writing Prompt #543

A Story by Emma

"After I nearly burnt down my house, my garage, and most of the trees in a five mile radius, I mostly stopped trying to light fires."

The whole series of fire-related debacles must have started when I was about 7 years old. My parents were both serial smokers, so much so that for a while I felt as if I saw my entire world through a haze of cigarette smoke. I became absolutely enthralled, fascinated by the miracle of fire. I memorized the telling click of the lighter and the familiar smell of the first exhale. The first time I lit my father's cigarette for him I felt a rush of satisfaction. This resulted in me slipping one of my father's old lighters in my pocket and rushing into the garden. I sat, cross-legged, and lit thousands of individual blades of grass on fire and subsequently blew them out.

Little did I know that I obviously didn't blow hard enough. Within hours my ashen blades of grass had set the entire garden alight and flames were licking at the walls of the house. I had to help my parents and the gardener throw buckets of water all over the garden until my mother's pride and joy was reduced to a black, smoldering heap of ash. I was grounded for what was supposed to be 2 weeks, but ended up being about 2 days. My parents had absolutely no idea how to punish me and lost interest within a few days anyway. The next few years were relatively quiet in terms of fire-related emergencies, but my passion hadn't lessened.

The next incident happened when I was around 11. I had a few friends over, which happened rather rarely. My father was away on business and my mother had a terrible migraine. She went to bed early, leaving four packages of instant macaroni and cheese for us to heat up. Wanting to impress my new friends, I crept up the steps to the coat hanger and stole a cigarette out of my mother's pack in her coat pocket. We rushed down to my garage, wide-eyed and flushed. I placed the cigarette in my mouth, as I had seen my parents do countless times, and flicked the lighter. I instantly wanted to cough and gag but I forced myself to inhale. I huffed out a bit of the leftover smoke and smirked as I took in my friend's impressed faces.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Every one of them had a drag, not one of them handled it as professionally as I did. Being as inexperienced as we were, when the cigarette was nearly finished we merely dropped it on the carpeted floor and crept back up to our rooms. The smell of smoke wafted up to our rooms about two hours later. I threw the covers off my body clumsily and rushed down the stairs two at a time - fire extinguisher clutched in my hands. It was a relatively controlled blaze - the flames positioned in a small circle dangerously close to the car. The flickering flames once again put me in a trance, the billowing smoke clouding my thoughts with the most euphoric sensation I had ever felt. The heat made my face glow and my fingertips tingle. My heart alight with a heat I had absolutely no idea how to extinguish