I was one of the arsonist's children.

-I remember the very first time I threw a Molotov cocktail as if it were yesterday. It was a memorable event that would etch itself into most people's memories, but for me there is a tragic twist. Despite my efforts, I can't remember how many Molotov cocktails I actually threw.

I'm lying here, hiding with my cousin, each of us holding a Molotov cocktail that smelled strongly of a mixed blend of gasoline, diesel, and soap flakes - just according to the recipe from the anarchist cookbook, or as it was called within the autonomous movement, the little black one. The scent united with us, I have been able to smell the special scent several times over the years and remember through it, the times that have passed. Scents often take me back to that time, and the strongest is still the smell of the Napalm-like mess that we mostly used to make firebombs. My heart is pounding in my chest, and I feel the adrenaline pumping out into my body. I am ready for an attack on the meat industry, and my body is set for the attack, rather than the escape that I know will come soon after. The running in my legs is replaced by a kind of stonework and a kind of calm that is left with me from my body's alarm.

I felt at home in these neighborhoods, I thought I knew every stone and where each house was. Despite being just a youth and having moved around countless times and changed schools nine times before high school, it was here in Ersboda in Umeå where I felt safe. Perhaps that's why we chose to commit our first arson here, to feel safe. We had planned everything down to the smallest detail, including the escape route that felt good and dark clothing - even though it was in the middle of summer and Umeå never gets dark enough to blend into the shadows. But we still wanted to be sure that we could disappear with a small advantage. We would have preferred to be dressed in camouflage, but it was just that we both didn't own such clothes, we were children from the poor school corridors.

I remember the feeling of anticipation building up within me as my cousin and I prepared for the upcoming mission. We knew it was time to act and that it was now or never. We also knew that our actions would speak louder than our words, and we were determined to take responsibility for our part. "Action speaks louder than words" so many times we had used the slogan, but now it will be more than words.

I vividly remember how we unscrewed the caps on the absolute vodka bottles we had found in the garbage cans near my cousin's yard. We cut up Team Sportia socks and stuffed them into the bottles. Then our eyes met in a silent agreement - it was time to act, now words would come to action. But the words should take over after the action is performed, that's the whole point. But that was someone else's role, this was my role. We have always been children of the darkness, now we will be known as the children of arson.

I felt my pulse increasing and my breathing becoming more and more rapid. We were ready to carry out our plan and take responsibility for our actions. Now it was up to us to act and show that our words were worth something. Our wide-eyed and expectant eyes met, and we both nodded, now we were ready. We crept out of our hiding place behind the Uggla shopping center and felt the excitement and adrenaline increase in our bodies as we approached our target: a converted Solifer trailer. It was no longer a symbol of vacation happiness, but rather a spreader of evil and quick death in our young revolutionary eyes. "We had learned that evil could be fought with evil, and that was what we were going to do. The propaganda we consumed daily had filled our heads with lines like: "Fight fire with fire," and that was exactly what we were going to do. To us, the meat industry symbolized evil, and this old Solifer Artic caravan was going to be the starting point for a series of nightly attacks against the meat industry in the name of the animals. It was the beginning of what would become world news. Many liters of ink would be needed for the country's journalists to tell this story.

In my head and over the past few days, I had visualized how our revolution would take off. I had even practiced throwing a Molotov cocktail into the air so that it would land on the ground and explode in a inferno of fire. So I had expected the same thing to happen now when I threw my bottle at our chosen target. But it didn't go as I had planned. The Molotov cocktail simply bounced off the hard plastic that covered the front of the converted caravan and fell to the ground. It was a disappointing experience, and I realized that my choice of a heavy Absolut Vodka bottle may not have been the most appropriate. My cousin laughed at my failed attempt and raised his arm to throw his own Molotov cocktail. The clang of the sound that was heard loudly when his bottle also bounced and landed on the ground and also failed to explode in a sea of fire and gasoline was a sound of disappointment. It's never like in the movies, I remember thinking. We later learned which bottles were more effective and which were less effective.

We looked at each other disappointed. I think we had both thought and planned the event in our heads thousands of times, but this was not the outcome we had expected. But now it was too late to back out, the first die had been cast and there was no alternative to failure or continuing. Quickly, I ran forward and extinguished the fire that had ignited the Intersport sock in the bottle opening and urged my cousin to do the same with his firebomb. We emptied the contents over the front of the Solifer caravan and its attached wooden deck and backed away. "Do you want to light it?" I asked. "You can do it," my cousin replied. I lit the stinky sock and threw it through the air. FOFF! We heard the sound we had heard many times before when we heard our parents light a grill. But now it wasn't a grill that was ignited, and the sound was much, much louder.

I think we were both shocked by the explosive fire that erupted when my burning sock hit the blended mixture of diesel, gasoline, and soap flakes on the lone food cart in the parking lot outside the mall in the Ersboda district of Umeå, Västerbotten, Sweden. This was just the beginning, a spark that would ignite a wave of direct actions in Umeå, and I was there to carry out most of them. I was one of them, I was one of the arsonist's children.

(This is a real event story from the early stage of a book of my childhood, for further intrest mail me at: [email protected])