Blaze

Matthew takes one last look behind him, at the blinding afternoon light, a curtain draped in threads of peach and lilac, at the city which promised so much but which, ultimately, failed to live up to its oath of prosperity and opportunity. He sighs and pushes the door open.
He places his old, worn overcoat on the hanger near the door, takes off his shoes and walks slowly toward the kitchen. His throat is parched, every breath like rubbing sandpaper on an open wound. The fridge appears on the right, delivering salvation.
“Finally, something works out on this fucking day”, he says, after noticing the last bottle of Corona, his favorite brand of beer and one of the only delights in his unremarkable existence. He sits down at the kitchen table, closes his eyes and takes a long sip of the ice-cold beer. Then he lets out another long sigh.
“Well, I guess there’s no point in wallowing in it now. What’s done is done. Goddamn city. I could barely afford to pay my rent as it was. Now what am I going to do?”
He closes his eyes again, leans forward and places his head in his hands. Noiselessly, he starts to sob.

Matthew worked as a cook for Panzani, a corner pizza place in Rome, on the outskirts of the old city. The day started with the usual routine, preparing the dough and placing it in the oven. His technique was sloppy, but acceptable. He never made any catastrophic mistakes. Sometimes, he burned a pizza a little past the point of safe consuming. That morning, he was in the process of taking out from the oven a pizza which was almost pitch black, scorched, and trying to make it as inconspicuous as he could, when Mr. Panzani, the owner of the place, darted out of his office and beckoned for him.
“Matthew, good timing. Come into my office. There’s something we need to talk about.”
They walked upstairs to the office of Ross Panzani, a room barely bigger than a cupboard. Panzani was a olive skinned, middle-aged man with a paunch, who used a custom-made metal chair for his desk. He bid Matthew sit across from him, on an ottoman, usually reserved for the restaurant’s mascot, Pepperoni, a white British shorthair.
“Look, Mr. Panzani, if this is about the burned pizza that you just saw . . . cooking isn’t an exact science. Things can go wrong even for the bestcook. And you know I usually do things right.”
Feigning deafness, Mr. Panzani pulled at the glasses hanging from his neck, his eyes staring absentmindedly at the wall behind Matthew. He finally started speaking, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
“Look, boy . . . You know things haven’t been easy around here, lately. What with the rent going up at the beginning of the year and the higher taxes on food and the rest. It’s things like these that kill small businesses like mine.” He looked down at his hands, placed them on the desk in front of him. “It’s not easy for me to do this just like that. But, seeing as you’re the newest employee we have, not to mention the least experienced, I’m gonna have to let you go. I’m very sorry.”
Matthew was dumbstruck. He could hardly make a sound.
After a few seconds, he just nodded solemnly to Mr. Panzani. There was nothing more to be said.
He finished his shift for the day, grabbed his bearings and went for the door.
“Hey”, Mr. Panzani came from behind him. “Look, I’m not a bad guy. It’s just, things are really tight right now. Maybe we’ll work together again, sometime. Just so you know, you’re a good boy, even if you do screw up sometimes. And you were right. Even the best chef has burned a few pizzas in his time. Some things are just meant to turn to ash and there’s no way around it”. He gave a faint smile and handed Matthew a stack of Euro bills. “Your salary for the week”.

Coming back to the room, Matthew turns his head to look around him.
His apartment’s a mess, just like always. Boxes stacked upon boxes of chinese food litter the living room table, together with a few dozen empty beer bottles and an ashtray full to the brim with cigarette carrion. The cheap television is switched off. He switches it on, thankful for the background noise. He follows that up with another sip of beer.
An official-looking envelope stares at him from the corner of the table. It takes a few seconds for him to see it. He picks it up. The sender appears to be a general hospital in his neighborhood.
The notice is about his mother. It informs him that she is in critical condition, having suffered third degree burns on 65% of her body in a fire that almost smoldered her apartment to its foundation. He is invited to visit her, but told beforehand that her condition is unlikely to improve.
Matthew stares at the letter for some time, his gaze unfocused, uncomprehending. This feels as if it were happening to somebody else. He pinches his cheeks, willing himself to wake up. His mother in a coma and not likely to ever wake up again. His only thought is that sometimes, life is so shockingly terrible and unpredictable. Like a skyscraper folding in on itself, unable to bear its own weight, life is self-destructive.
It is at this time that a question starts to take shape in Matthew’s mind, like a butterfly fresh out of its cocoon.

“Do I have any reason keep going with this shit? What has this life offered me so far? And what do I have left? No job, no school, no prospects. And without mom . . .”. For a few seconds, his mind stops, unwilling to draw the inevitable conclusion, to ask the final question. “ Why not surrender myself to the fire? Fire and me are old friends. Buddies. I know his M.O. like the back of my hand. He’d burn me to a crisp and then turn me to ash. And maybe that’s what I want.”
He muses over the question for a while still, but, ultimately, decides that it’s much too late and he is much too tire. He gets up, goes to his room and falls down on the mattress like an anvil. A deep sleep swallows him up. He falls asleep around 10 p.m.

His mother comes to him in his dream. Not as herself, but more as the idea of his mother. He is standing in a poppy field, surrounded by the emerald green grass and the immense blue expanse of sky looms over him. As he looks around, feeling the cool, invigorating breeze on his exposed skin, he notices circles of light appearing on the ground. Turning his eyes upwards, he sees the sky open up like a gaping wound and a blindingly white light push forth into the world. Matthew finds that he can look straight into the light with no pain. Slowly, a figure with a blurry outline descends, to stand on the grass in front of him. Even up close, the figure is difficult to discern. For him, however, there is no need for further information.
The dream ends and Matthew wakes up, invigorated. He needs no fortune teller to show him what his dream means. It is a sign. His mother has passed. And she is calling.

Whe he wakes up, his mind is set.
After a few hours of careful picking and choosing, he has everything he needs. A gas canister, matches, car keys at the ready. He exits the building and goes to his car, an old blue, run-down Buick Century, opens the driver’s side door and starts splashing the inside of the car with gas. He makes sure to do a thorough job. Every inch is coated with a thin film of oil, like tinted windows. Once the can is empty, he enters the car and shuts the door, after throwing his key out the window. The autolock feature kicks in, shutting the doors, thereby imprisoning him in the car.
Matthew takes out the box of matches from his pocket.

“What better path to where mom has gone than the same one that she took? Light this match and poof. We will be reunited. No one will miss me when I’m gone. And I don’t even care. All my life I’ve worked from morning to night, barely taking any rest. it’s all I’ve known. So what, if nobody’ll grieve for me? Mom will be happy to see me. That’s all that matters. She’ll be waiting for me.”
With that, he strikes the match, which gives off its first spark. Slowly, as if savoring the moment, the flame grows in size. The fire looks alive. Expectant. Matthew throws the match on the ground beneath his feet.
With a puff, the flames expand rapidly. Seats, steering wheel, gear shift, everything Matthew’s eyes can see is coated in flames. His clothes catch fire. He sees them turn to ash. The flames swallow the inside of the car, torching leather, plastic, cotton and skin. For the most part, Matthew maintains the calm of a practiced yogi. He closes his eyes and succumbs to the all consuming torching. Near the end, he lets out a long scream, but not a scream of agony. It is the scream of joy of a sinner finally being forgiven. Eventually, the screams stop. The car is unrecognizable. Everything inside is a mishmash of black tar, torched meat and smoke. So much smoke.
Matthew’s body is charred beyond recognition.

A faint, nearly imperceptible smile graces what remains of his lips.