Fire, how was I supposed to know it would lead to this?

English short story Charlie Mcsweeney Mrs Kurt

Fire, how was I supposed to know it would lead to this? Why was fire created? What is its purpose? Why did I not take these points into consideration before?

When I was just a small boy (about ten) for the first time a lighter flame flickered in front of my eyes, an obsession of mine had just emerged. You see after the first sight of the luminous hypnotising flame I was hooked like an addiction always wanting to see a bigger and more ferocious fire.

The first fire I spawned needed three fire engines to extinguish it. It was these old tin sheds, that were derelict or that was what I had thought until I had seen the local news that evening,

“Homeless man found scolded in derelict tin sheds in Longfield.”

I did feel guilty for the homeless man vacating the sheds, but at the same time a sharp exhilarating rush emerged throughout my body. The next time made the local news again, an old rundown house in the middle of the woods which went up a treat. The fire engines where unable to get to the scene, while I watched on fascinated by the flames flickering fiercely in the wind. The police where getting a bit suspicious now and where trying to stereotype people walking down the street as pyromaniacs whatever one of them would look like. You see I was a typical teenager with tracksuit bottom’s a t-shirt covered by a hooded top and a baseball cap. This was the fashion for children my age so I didn’t stand out at all, although the rush of being caught was another stimulation that I knew one day I would come to an end.

For the next couple of months I had been going around causing carnage burning down old houses to dustbins. The rush was building up; my mind telling me to make a fire and to burn something, at this stage knew something was wrong with my mind but I was so involved in the fires my common sense had faded away. I knew the police were hot on my trail they had narrowed the suspects down to a teenager living locally in Longfield. This next fire was to be my last it would be the biggest fire I have ever seen. ...

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I set off from my house and walked the three miles to the shops to pick my shopping for the fire; it consisted of two jerry cans full of petrol, a lighter and I took a trip to Glover’s farm to pick five bails of straw. I set off to the council estate which was packed with over two hundred houses. I positioned my tools around the back in one of the garages and proceeded towards the nearest fire alarm and let it off, and observed all of the people flee to the car park some hundred yards away. I then immediately began to position the hay bails in the middle of the estate. You see the estate had two large buildings joined by a smaller one in the middle. I then swiftly moved to the base of the middle building placed the straw and then went to the retrieve the lighter and petrol. All that was need now was for me to rig the lighter to explode when I heard sirens; it must be the police and fire brigade responding to the fire alarm as I placed the rigged lighter there was a banging on the door,

“Come on open the door, who’s there.”

“It must be a kid just playing with alarms again go and get the fire brigade to search the area!”

The lighter was set in place and I was trapped the only way to go was up, at this stage my heart was pounding and my veins ready to explode because of the adrenaline flowing through them. I then stood on the roof of the middle building and all of a sudden heard a deafening blast of the rigged lighter exploding. Looking down I could see fir roaring out of the windows and rising upwards.

Time was fading away forcing me upon a decision to live and get caught due to the drop being so high, or stay and get burnt to death. At this point staring death right in the eyes I realised there was no rush or urge to do it again but a desire to live my life as a usual sane person again not a pyromaniac and not end my life at sixteen. The fire was now two floors below me I could feel the heat through the roof. My actions always have seemed to go before my mind so before I knew it I was in mid air on my way down to earth. I passed through the flames out the window I got slightly scolded; as I hit the floor with a horrifying thud and no sense of feeling in my legs feeling completely paralysed. Whilst I was trying to crawl away I was spotted by one of the policemen,

“Lads I’ve found him. He’s the one who started it I saw him through the window.”

I wasn’t really left with a choice to plead my innocence seeing as one of the residents saw me set the alarm off.

So here I am now sitting in juvenile prison saying to myself,

“Fire, how was I supposed to know it would lead to this? Why was fire created? What was its purpose?”