Adam Grace

5/25/2015

Firebug
GROWTH
Three months in bum fuck Georgia can do wonders for the soul. Three months, four days,
and sixteen hours. Within the swampiest, warmest, dampest, most southern section of Georgia
lies the grandiose Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. This swamp is a shit filled wetland
straddling the eastern Georgia-Florida border. The vast majority of Okefenokee is protected by
the title of National Park. Its considered one of the seven natural wonders of Georgia. Wonder
my ass. The only thing I was wondering while I dredged through muck and slime for 94 days
was when I could get my hands on another cigarette.
A part of my local rehab centers deal is that if we end up relapsing more than three times
wed be obligated to go on this nature retreat to see if we could find our true self.
Unfortunately I had relapsed one time too many and I found myself saying why the fuck not?.
I signed the contract, bought the ticket, and away I went. They dropped me, a medic, and several
other junkies out into the middle of Okefenokee with nothing but our clothes and a few ration
packs. It seemed a little extreme, but fuck it I had nothing to lose. So on top of my mind splitting
headaches, vomiting, and cramps from morphine withdrawal, I had to deal with the forces of
nature and five other idiot burnouts. I dont know if any of the others had found themselves, but
after three months of fruitless searching one begins to doubt ones own sanity.
Fortunately, the medical professional that was present was able to ween me off of my
habits pretty efficiently. If theres one thing that I can be grateful for its that the trip to Georgia
actually helped me kick my morphine addiction for a good amount of time. Unfortunately,
addictions arent that simple. The physical aspect of addiction is easy enough. Lower the doses
until obvious physical symptoms subside. Keep the dosage as low as possible until you can
function successfully without the drug. But the human brain is stubborn. Even without the
physical draw, the mind will always remember the experience of the high. The high that brings
you to nirvana. The high that makes nothing matter and everything make sense. And the mind
doesnt want to let that go, ever. So you have this thing in your brain that clutches on for dear
life, because you know that nothing else can replicate that experience. So instead of trying to

relive your high, the center has you choose healthier options to keep your brain at bay;
scrapbooking, knitting, exercising, anything to keep yourself occupied. But I can tell you now,
no amount of gluing paper to a book can ever repress my urges.
It was 2:14 am when I finally returned to my waiting apartment. I opened my front door
to see nothing new. The apartment was expectedly in the same state of being that it was in when I
had left. Except it was maybe a little more dusty than before. Im not sure how comforting it is to
know that your house most likely wont mind if you leave and never come back. That it would
just remain in the same exact state until another human comes along and decides to live in it.
I pressed the power button on the T.V. remote and nestled into the couch. The set clicked
on and buzzed to life. On the screen was a man with a microphone in a yellow rain jacket. Rain
and wind whipped around him as he held onto his faltering hood. His voice crackled through the
speaker system.
Reports of massive storm fronts approaching from the east appear to be in case of
lightning remain indoors...
His words began sounding slurred. My eyes felt heavy and my head fell helplessly
backwards.
DECAY
I woke up in the late afternoon to an infomercial about scissors that doubled as
headphones or something like that. It was Saturday. No, it was Sunday. Either way I had nothing
urgent that was weighing down my schedule. I looked around the room searching for something
to entertain myself with. On the table was a pile of old vintage magazines from the 1960s.
Magazines ranging from the ever amusing Model Airplane News to the classic Newsweek
detailing the politics of President Johnsons ongoing administration. Nothing caught my
attention. I thought about catching fish. I thought about wildlife. I thought about rehab. I thought
about morphine. I thought about morphine. I thought about morphine.
FUCK! I screamed and slammed my hand on the table. My head felt like it was
splitting open, and thoughts that I had beat down were crawling back up out of the cracks in my
skull. My hand was warm and wet, and when I looked down it was crimson and gleaming.

Jesus I muttered to myself. I rushed to the bathroom to inspect the damage. My palm
was split from thumb to pinky. I must have slammed my hand down on the sharp side of a steak
knife. I think I might have hit pretty big vein, because blood was pouring out of me faster than I
expected.
I cleaned it out and wrapped it in several layers of bandages. A small splotch of red still
could be seen from underneath the gauze. The pain was intense. I thought about drinking it away.
I thought about alcoholism. I thought about addiction. I thought about morphine.
My night continued in such a manner until I found an old Zippo lighter laying beneath
my coffee table. I dont remember the specifics of where I bought that lighter. Or if I even
bought it at all. It had a tiny demon-like cartoon character etched into the front. A little scroll
twisted around its head that read, Firebrand. I flipped the lid off and clicked the lighter on. In
that moment, something spurred deep deep inside of me. Something dark and forceful, and yet so
incredibly satisfying. The flame grew upwards to a point. It stood, almost courageously, and
stoically above the silvery lighter. The fire felt so restrained. It dipped back and forth, side to
side, up and down. But it never faltered. It looked as though there was something visceral,
something primal that lurked deeper within. I flicked the lid back on and drowned the flame.
Reality sunk in and I realized that I had been sitting there for 30 straight minutes.
I couldnt stop thinking about that night. My dreams were filled with a sea of heat and
smoke and combustion. My days were filled with watching things burn. I burned a lot of papers.
Printer paper, scrap sheets, old resumes, checkbooks, unpaid bills. I soon became worried
because I was running out of paper to burn, and a pile of ash was slowly accumulating on my
coffee table. I had to move on to lighting something else aflame when my paper resource ran
scarce. Old CDs, clothes that were too small, unused shoelaces, anything that was remotely
expendable to me was swiftly set ablaze.
I wanted to know what this strange fascination was. I wanted to explore how deep it
went. So I volunteered my time to firefighting.
TRANSFORMATION
I received my certificate in just under two weeks. It was surprisingly easy and seemed to
come naturally to me. I guess I never considered myself the civil servant type. The first few calls

we I attended to were relatively tame. Someone had left their oven on all day. Some stoners had
accidently set off the smoke alarm in their parents basement. A firework went haywire and set a
latrine alight. It wasnt until my second month of service that I was reminded why I was doing all
of this.
A group of teenagers had decided to set up a little bonfire in an abandoned house on the
south side of the city. We rushed down there as soon as we received the phone call. By the time
we arrived, however, the damage was already done. I exited the fire engine and was greeted with
an immensely beautiful sight. Before me stood a massive conflagration towering far into the sky.
The previously white house had turned charcoal black. The white paper peeled off and curled
inwards like a dead mans fingers. Flames spewed from the broken windows and reached up
towards the top of the building. For a moment I ignored my job. I just wanted to bask in the
elegance of it all. Then I snapped into action.
I grabbed the rubber tube from the truck and passed it off to the next person. I fed the
tube down the line to someone who had locked it into the nearest fire hydrant. I grabbed my
mask and oxygen tank, and was ready to enter the house. The front door to the house was
partially collapsed, I kicked it and it fell inward without resistance.
Anyone in here?! I yelled through the house waiting for a response. When no response
came I ran to the next room. And the next. And the next.
Soon enough all the rooms were cleared out. Since there was no one to be found in the
house, we were clear to leave. As I stepped through the now crumbling living room I heard a
stifled noise coming from the kitchen. I hesitated a second, deciding whether or not to pursue the
noise. The house trembled slightly and I knew it was too late for those kinds of decisions. The
house was clearly in terrible shape, even before the fire started. No one owned it. No one insured
it. So we let it crumble. The team headed back to the station, but I decided to stick around. I
wanted to watch the flame to completion. I wanted to see it through all the way, till the last
ember was extinguished. So I did.
The house burned for the next hour. Crescendos of flame spurred from the center of the
building. Flares exploded out of the windows and licked the panels from the walls. The wildfire
then finally reached its climax and began its gradual descent. I stayed until I heard the final
simmering hiss of cooling embers. An air of satisfaction followed me throughout the rest of the
night.

On the news the next morning I learned that two boys that were in the house had never
showed up at home. And closer investigation discovered two bodies where the house used to
stand. The fire had erased their features, and their faces were completely unrecognizable. After
learning this news I vomited in my sink.
I tried to convince myself that there was nothing I could have done. I tried to reconcile
my actions. In the end there wasnt anything I could do other than take responsibility for what I
had done, or rather, what I hadnt done. Even after hearing this harrowing news I still couldnt
stop thinking about burning. But I hadnt thought about morphine in a long time. Longest Id
ever gone without it. My addiction was essentially dissipated. Yet I couldnt help but feel that
one evil was simply replaced by another. I couldnt go five minutes without having the urge to
see something ignite. And this habit was an inherently selfish one. At least with morphine I was
only destroying myself. With this new found urge I was destroying everything else.
A few days later the fire station received an incredibly urgent call from a worried
neighbour. They said the family was out of town on vacation, but they had left their pets at home.
They heard lightning and saw smoke emerging from the sides of the house and called
immediately. In sixty seconds we were in the fire engine on our way to the address. Upon our
arrival we noticed the scene was drastically different from the description given over the phone.
Smoke was billowing from the house. White hot flames spurted out of the exploding windows. A
gas leak came from the basement of the house that was fueling the flames. Even from 50 feet
away, without proper gear, it was possible to receive third degree burns. Something trembled
under the earth and the fire emerging from the building turned a stark green. Id never seen a
blaze of this color before. I stood in awe before the beautiful display of glowing colors and
dancing flames. For a moment I felt a strange pull towards the fire.
Do you hear that? A fellow fireman asked me.
A high pitched squealing bark came from somewhere in the house. Their dogs were still
inside. I quickly threw on my oxygen tank and mask and rushed inside. As soon as I entered the
house I felt the intense heat beat down on me. It immediately became much more difficult to
move. The fire devoured everything around me. Emerald green flames flickered up and down the

walls. It was incredible. Each room was filled with a dazzling green glow. The walls seemed to
be undulating and bending around me, as if they were caught in some sort of carnal performance.
Were all clear! A voice came from outside the house.
I frantically looked around, but no one was in sight. I wanted to scream at them that I was
still in the house. I wanted to so badly. But something stopped me. A flame that stood before me
seemed to extend a fiery hand and beckon me towards it. It was all so magnificently elegant. I
removed my gloves. I removed my mask. I wanted to feel the flames. I reached out towards the
scorching palm and grasped it. Glowing twisting twirling flames licked my skin and contorted
around my body, creating a blazing inferno with a silhouetted figure situated in the center. The
conflagration absorbed me as burning itching flesh separated from muscle and bone. Every hair
on my searing body caught aflame and turned to ash. The scorching blaze reached my face and
blinded me. It took my ears and my hearing with them. Gleaming broiling flame and smoke
reached far down my throat and silenced my screaming. My senses nulled, I gave in to the fires
smouldering embrace. Pure beauty and bliss overwhelmed my very being. Euphoria pulsed up
my spine and stretched far out to the edges of my blackened fingertips. I thought about
Okefenokee. I thought about model airplane magazines. I thought about that old Zippo lighter. I
didnt think about morphine. I accepted the flame, and the flame accepted me. We bounded and
danced in uninterrupted glory until all that was left of my once living body was some ash and a
scorched pile of bones. And I was happy. I was truly, sincerely happy.