Pyrogirl
to Paperboy
by
Shi Y, Arizona, USA, Age 16
It
started with him. The first time he saw her, he knew at once. He
couldn’t place a finger on what it was that he knew, or how
he knew it, but he was sure of it, entirely, completely, and with
every square inch of his being.
She
wasn’t so sure. She was a variable, an x, y, z, a flight risk,
and more than a little dangerous. And she also was, as such things
always are, irresistible beyond description, beyond even comprehension—it
was just a feeling; a completely undeniable feeling that burned
to the touch and breathed sweet red toxic into every crevasse of
the mind.
His
friends could see what he could not, and they warned him.
“She’s fire,” they said. “You’re not.”
But he didn’t listen; he didn’t care. He knew, and that
was all that mattered.
And she knew too, but what she knew was different, because what
he knew was her, and she could never hope to know her own self as
he did; she simply couldn’t see it.
So what she knew was this: that she burned him, because she was
fire, and he was paper.
He
had dreams. He heard the click, click, click, of a lighter endlessly
opening; he saw the lick, lick, lick of the climbing flames; he
felt the hot, hot heat, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t,
even if he wanted to; he couldn’t leave until his body was
a cinder, broken and borne away on the wind.
She
was smoking with tears. Her face was a mask, a flaming white mask,
and her tears were useless, because he hadn’t listened, because
he was gone. All that was left was a whisper on the wind, the same
wind that had taken him away, and it said, over and over again:
“...and I’ll thank you forever.”
