to live there, but I liked to imagine that theyâd gone off to the Wilds, made a clean break for the border once the new regulations kicked in, once people started getting locked up for disagreeing.
It was close to the border, only fifty feet from the fence. Thatâs why I chose it too.
I had started with small thingsâmatchbooks, papers; then piles of leaves, heaped carefully into a garbage can; then a little locked wooden shed on Rosemont Avenue. I watched from Presumpscot Park, sitting on a bench, while the firemen came to put out the shed fire, sirens screaming, geared up. I watched while the neighbors gathered, until there were so many they blocked my view and I tried to stand. But I couldnât stand. My feet and legs were numb. Like bricks. So I just sat and sat, until the crowd thinned and I saw the shed wasnât a shed anymore but just a pile of charred wood and metal and molten plastic, where a bunch of toys had fused together.
All because of the smallest spark. All because of the click of a lighter in my hand.
I couldnât stop.
Then: a house. It was summer, six oâclock, dinner hour. I figured if anyone smelled the smoke they might think it was a barbecue, and Iâd have plenty of time to get out of there. I used rags stuffed with kerosene and a Bic lighter I had stolen from the desk of the principalâs office at my school: yellow with smiley faces on it.
Right away I knew it was a mistake. The house went up in less than a minute. The flames just . . . swallowed it. The smoke blocked out the sun and turned the air blurry from the heat. The smell was awful. Maybe thereâd been dead animals in the house, mice and raccoons. I hadnât thought to check.
But the worst was the noise. It was louder, way louder, than I had expected. I could hear wood popping, splitting apart, could hear individual splinters burst and crackle into nothing. Like the house was screaming. But weirdly, when the roof went down, there wasnât any sound at all. Or maybe I couldnât hear by then, because my lungs were full of smoke and my head was pounding and I was running as fast as I could. I called the fire department from an old pay phone, disguising my voice. I didnât stay to watch them come.
They saved the barn, at least. I found out later. I even went to a few parties there, years afterward, on nights I couldnât stand it anymore: all the pretending, the secrets, the sitting around and waiting for instructions.
I even saw her there, once.
But I never went back without remembering the fireâthe way it ate up the sky, the sound of a house, a something , shriveling into nothing.
Thatâs what it was like waking up in the Crypts. No-longer-dead. But without her.
Like burning alive.
I have nothing to say about my months there. Imagine it, then imagine worse, then give up and know you canât imagine it.
You think you want to know, but you donât.
No one expected me to live, so it was like a game to the guards to see how much I could take. One guy, Roman, was the worst. He was uglyâfat lips, eyes glassed over like a fish on ice in the grocery storeâand mean as hell. He liked to put his cigarettes out on my tongue. He cut the insides of my eyelids with razors. Every time I blinked, I felt like my eyes were exploding. I used to lie awake at night and imagine wrapping my hands around his throat, killing him slowly.
See? I told you. You donât want to know.
But the worst was where they put me. The old cell where Iâd once stood with Lena, staring at the words etched into the stone. A single word, actually. Just love , over and over.
Theyâd patched up the hole in the wall, reinforced it and barred it with steel. But I could still taste the outside, still smell the rain and hear the distant roar of the river beneath me. I could watch the snow bending whole trees into submission, could lick the icicles that formed on the other side of the
It was close to the border, only fifty feet from the fence. Thatâs why I chose it too.
I had started with small thingsâmatchbooks, papers; then piles of leaves, heaped carefully into a garbage can; then a little locked wooden shed on Rosemont Avenue. I watched from Presumpscot Park, sitting on a bench, while the firemen came to put out the shed fire, sirens screaming, geared up. I watched while the neighbors gathered, until there were so many they blocked my view and I tried to stand. But I couldnât stand. My feet and legs were numb. Like bricks. So I just sat and sat, until the crowd thinned and I saw the shed wasnât a shed anymore but just a pile of charred wood and metal and molten plastic, where a bunch of toys had fused together.
All because of the smallest spark. All because of the click of a lighter in my hand.
I couldnât stop.
Then: a house. It was summer, six oâclock, dinner hour. I figured if anyone smelled the smoke they might think it was a barbecue, and Iâd have plenty of time to get out of there. I used rags stuffed with kerosene and a Bic lighter I had stolen from the desk of the principalâs office at my school: yellow with smiley faces on it.
Right away I knew it was a mistake. The house went up in less than a minute. The flames just . . . swallowed it. The smoke blocked out the sun and turned the air blurry from the heat. The smell was awful. Maybe thereâd been dead animals in the house, mice and raccoons. I hadnât thought to check.
But the worst was the noise. It was louder, way louder, than I had expected. I could hear wood popping, splitting apart, could hear individual splinters burst and crackle into nothing. Like the house was screaming. But weirdly, when the roof went down, there wasnât any sound at all. Or maybe I couldnât hear by then, because my lungs were full of smoke and my head was pounding and I was running as fast as I could. I called the fire department from an old pay phone, disguising my voice. I didnât stay to watch them come.
They saved the barn, at least. I found out later. I even went to a few parties there, years afterward, on nights I couldnât stand it anymore: all the pretending, the secrets, the sitting around and waiting for instructions.
I even saw her there, once.
But I never went back without remembering the fireâthe way it ate up the sky, the sound of a house, a something , shriveling into nothing.
Thatâs what it was like waking up in the Crypts. No-longer-dead. But without her.
Like burning alive.
I have nothing to say about my months there. Imagine it, then imagine worse, then give up and know you canât imagine it.
You think you want to know, but you donât.
No one expected me to live, so it was like a game to the guards to see how much I could take. One guy, Roman, was the worst. He was uglyâfat lips, eyes glassed over like a fish on ice in the grocery storeâand mean as hell. He liked to put his cigarettes out on my tongue. He cut the insides of my eyelids with razors. Every time I blinked, I felt like my eyes were exploding. I used to lie awake at night and imagine wrapping my hands around his throat, killing him slowly.
See? I told you. You donât want to know.
But the worst was where they put me. The old cell where Iâd once stood with Lena, staring at the words etched into the stone. A single word, actually. Just love , over and over.
Theyâd patched up the hole in the wall, reinforced it and barred it with steel. But I could still taste the outside, still smell the rain and hear the distant roar of the river beneath me. I could watch the snow bending whole trees into submission, could lick the icicles that formed on the other side of the
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