Wax Figure

There was a fire in Damian’s hands. Not one of the metaphorical variety, though the sheer nonsensical nature of this statement would have caused most to assume as such. No, there was a small fire in his upturned hands. The flames were flickering a plethora of swirling colours that illuminated the inside of his blanket, the enclosed space provided by Damian’s mutual desire to keep the weak blinking fire and the light it provided selfishly away from others, and his selfless wish to not wake up his siblings with the sudden brightness.

For such a feat that yielding fire to one’s hand should be, it wasn’t incredibly impressive. In what would have been anticlimactically if Damian had known he could even do something so unimaginable, the small flame looked nothing more then what one would find if they were to strike a match or lighter. Nevertheless, it was the sheer absurdity of the event that caused Damian to gaze at the fire in his hands with an otherwise unwarranted interest. The heat exerted by the flame concentrated within the small space Damian’s blanket provided, causing a cold sweat to prickle across his body that was localized at his hands. While the open flame provided a burning sensation bordering on unbearable, it did not come with the expected red-hot agonizing pain typically caused by fire this close. Looking at his hands Damian found them to be unchanged excluding a faint red flush that stretched to the rest of his body.

Emboldened by this, Damian carefully shifted the fire to reside solely in the palm of his right hand, the blaze moving easily as if made of a manipulable liquid rather than a consuming force. With his free hand Damian slowly started moving his index finger to touch the flame. However, the fire seemed to shy away from his outstretched finger – a phenomena not explainable by the non-existent wind. Damian moved his finger way. The fire followed, letting Damian feel the intense heat without allowing him to touch it. Damian flexed his finger and the fire grew slightly larger, more harshly luminating its limited surroundings.

Over the thumping of his heart Damian heard one of his siblings noisily turn over in their sleep. Holding his breath, Damian waited until the shuffling stopped and their breathing evened out into a near silent snore, praying that they would not wake up and see his misshapen blanket or the leaks of light coming out through gaps within cotton threading. Letting out a sigh of relief after an extended silence indicating his sibling had peacefully resettled, Damian lifted his hand above the fire and continuously moved his fingers in a wild, non-distinguishable pattern. The flame followed his lead as if it was connected to the soft tissue and pores of Damian’s hand like a marionette is connected to the strings controlling it. The millions of metaphorical strings tugged at the fire, forcing it to act within a perfect, if not somewhat confusing, replication of Damian’s own hand movements.

The fire fell into a methodical pattern, following Damian’s hand within its controlled motions. Damian found himself unconsciously moving his hand to the beat of his own thundering heart, causing the flame to mimic the same rhythmic cycle. Within the flickering fire matched up to his own heartbeat, Damian was lured into an overwhelming calmness through the fire’s predictable and controllable actions. Despite sharing only the rhythm of Damian’s heartbeat he had started to liken the fire to a companion - the sweltering heat under the blanket, his perpetual and overwhelming feelings of being alone despite his siblings sleeping only meters away, and the struggles of his everyday life leaking away. Under his blanket he was not the only heartbeat, not the only one.

Not alone.

A combination of reckless happiness and a desire to strengthen the life he had created caused Damian to exaggerate his hand movements, allowing the fire to climb high in the air - an impressive sight when compared to the match-sized flame it previously was. The heat under the blanket grew with each dramatic hand movement, the previously harmless sweltering causing harsh burning across Damian’s body. His skin distorted and discolored as layers were burnt away, his hand holding the flame resembling only a shadow of what it had once been with the first inkling of bone illuminated by the blazing light, appearing through layers of skin and fat that almost held the appearance of wax melting away from a wick.

Damian should have felt the scouring pain of his body melting away from the bone, heard the confused low mutterings of his siblings as they were woken up by the brilliant light that was now not only burning him, but his blanket too. Instead the burning left little sensation, the panic in his siblings’ voices as they watched the fire surround his bed sounding like nothing more than white noise. Within the consuming fire Damian’s serenity was undisturbed, the faces of his siblings distorted and blurred as if he was looking through clouded glass. He dropped his hands to his lap, the fire now able to survive without his influence. It consumed him, eating him alive as his appearance morphed into something that could be confused as not entirely human through its melted nature. Damian wasn’t sure if he was human either way – what made a human? Was it his appearance, or his mannerisms? If so, at what point did he stop being human, if he ever did? Neither his ability nor appearance seemed very human, but Damian couldn’t find it within his tranquility to care much about what he was.

He thought of himself as simply living. Within the flame surrounding him, he thought much the same of the fire. He was a living being, to be consumed by another living being. Nothing is more alive then the cycle of life – the sacrifice of oneself to help another survive.

Within this knowledge Damian could peacefully rest, the final stage of his own cycle complete through his closing heart beat.