i see fire

Lee Eunsook ✩ Pyromania ✩ 1354 words
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She’s 11 when her mother asks her to light a candlelight for the first time. The match almost burns her slim fingers before she drops it onto the plate and the flame dies on the porcelain.

She’s staring fascinated at the smoke that slowly rises towards the sky in curls, the way it surges towards the ceiling before it dissolves into nothing. The ember extinguishes itself in a quiet sigh and she stares at the burnt wood before her mother takes the box of matches out of her hands so she can light the candle herself.

She sits in front of the candle and stares into the flame, watches the orange and yellow flicker and dance in the living room. Her attention is on the small flicker of life and not on the grown-up conversation her parents have with their guests.

She barely said hello when they arrived but nobody cares because she’s an only child and this is an adult-meeting, a fun night with good food and wine. She never understood why they would do it, what made them fuss for something that seems so irrelevant.

So she spends her time looking at the only thing that captures her interest. It almost makes her smile, the beauty of the life she sees in the flame, the power that it portrays, the way it slowly but surely eats the wax.


She’s 14 when her friend asks her to please look for the lighter in their jacket pocket so they can light their cigarette. She isn’t going to smoke, she never liked the smoke. It’s different. Not as pure as the smoke from the matches and the candlelights.

She does what she’s asked anyway, finds the lighter and burns her finger slightly as she lights their cigarette. She turns away from them and lights it again.

She has the power, this time; there’s no wood burning, deciding how long she has before the flame eventually will burn her and die out. There are only her and the power to flicker the flame to life only to let it die out again.

She lets the flame dance in the wind, lets it soar towards the sky, while she forgets that her fingernails are long. As she finally lets the flame die out and her friend asks her if she wants to go eat something quick, she realises that the flame has burnt the tip of the nail on her thumb, the blackened edge a proof of what the flame is capable of.

She pockets the lighter and follows her friend. The other is still smoking their hideous cigarette and they laugh at a joke they tell. She smiles, lets her forefinger run over the nail on her thumb and revels in the feeling that she has the power to hurt herself.


She’s 17 when she dips her finger in the hot wax surrounding the flame. It burns her skin before it cools down and stiffens and she slowly peels it off, tries to get it off in one piece before she dips the same finger back in the wax. She has collected a small amount of finger-formed wax samples and her skin is red, protesting against the burning wax but she continues as she watches the flame around the wick, making its way towards the end of the candle.

She lets her finger hover above the flame and lets the heat melt the wax off of her finger. When her finger is hurting too much from the abuse, she finds the box of matches she has hidden and sticks one end to the flame.

The match lights in a small explosion that looks much like a star before it dies down and becomes the faithful orange flicker of life she has been fascinated with in the past years.

She closes her eyes until she smells the smoke as the match dies out on its own, wood curling upwards the way the flame had forced it to. There are still embers in the wood before they, too, die down and becomes nothing but coal.

She lights another match and waits for it to burn down and then another. She lets the smell waft in her small room, lets the carbon dioxide take over her lungs until she coughs and has to open a window.

The oxygen is fresh against the carbon dioxide and she watches with awe while the flame feeds on the new energy it’s provided.


She’s 20 when he lights a candlelight for their dinner and he smiles. She smiles too, but not because of him. He takes it as a compliment. She doesn’t hear him, eats her food in silent fascination of the power she sees as wax finds its way down the long stem of the candle.

He takes her hand suddenly and she shakes him off with a soft smile and a ‘please don’t’. He follows her gaze and gets a good idea.

The next time she meets him she finds herself in a bedroom filled with candlelights and a bed in the middle. He kisses her shoulder, her neck, guides her closer to the bed and she breathes the familiar warmth of the flames around her.

He strips her of her clothes but her attention is not on his hands or his lips. She smiles and reaches a hand out towards the flames. She can’t reach.

She frowns a moves a little to the side of the bed. He doesn’t notice. She needs to touch, needs to make sure they’re as beautiful as the rest of the flames she has seen in her life, just as powerful, just as dangerous.

A wrong move sends a couple of candlelights to the floor and they catch onto the bedding. He realises quickly, gets her off of the bed and pushes her out of the room.

She feels her eyes water as he chokes the flames.


She’s 23 when she lights a match and stares at the flame. The orange begs for her to let go, to be free and she does. She drops the match onto the wooden floor. Her parents are sleeping in their bedroom. The flame marks the floor with a black spot before it dies out.

She lights another one, smiles at the tiny flame that sparks. It dies out almost as soon as it has started, there’s no way for her to keep it alive.

She squats to the floor and drags the head of coal over the floor, paints with black until there is no more of the match. Another match is lit, another flame dies out under her power and she keeps writing with the coal. 3 matches become 6 and 6 become 12 and suddenly the box of matches is empty.

She looks at the matches on the floor and the words on the wooden floor. They scare her. She blinks before she turns around and leaves the house without looking back.


She’s 24 as she drops the box of gasoline on the floor.

There’s a wet trail, soaking into the wood on the floor and she stares at it. It’ll keep her flames alive, it’ll be beautiful. It’ll give them what they need, what they deserve.

She closes her eyes as she lights the last match before she opens them again and looks at the flame. In a couple of seconds, it’ll grow, it will no longer be one flame, it will be multiple. It will be eating everything it can, devouring what it deserves.

She takes a step back before she drops the match and watches in awe at how the flame grows. It becomes big, strong, dangerous. She leaves the house, sits in the garden and stares through the windows at the only beauty life beholds.

She watches in morbid fascination as the flames devour everything she has known before, she feels at home in the warmth that finds its way from the corners of the house where the fire eats away. She smiles content.

author's notes

Winner of The Closer - A Weekly Drabble Contest; Week 1.

I gotta admit that I really love this drabble as well. I love fire, it fascinates me as much as the ocean does. So here you have it. My fascination with fire written in words.
Thanks for reading.