Two Lies and a Truth

Interpretation 1

Clay Emerson was born in flames.

He could spontaneously combust, his body haloed in brilliantly, destructive fire. The heat did nothing to his own skin, but it could burn through matter around him. This coupled with his inability to control when he was set alight, burning all before him, made him a living hazard.

His own mother's womb had been unprepared for such heat, being scorched until she had no hope of survival, alongside what was meant to be his twin. At his birth, the doctor suffered horrible burns to his hands, and his nursery was full of extinguishers and buckets of water. Anything Clay regularly grasped in his small, chubby hands was replaced with a fire-proof version. He had very few toys, since it was hard to find any which would not be seared to ash when he next burst into flames. Taking him places was rarely done, for fear a wayward ember might spark in the gasoline-filled Honda.

His father didn't hug him often, frightened by the inferno his child was. His grandmother hugged him often, because she was old and did not care. Though as Clay got older, he noticed she always smelled like aloe. Even when she died, when Clay was eleven, the funeral parlor had reeked of it. It mixed sickenly with the scent of smoke after Clay accidently set a flower arrangement aflame.

After his grandmother's passing, Clay's father moved them from their home in Massachusetts to a squat cottage in a swamp of Louisiana. Each wall was sodden and damp, hard to catch fire, which made it perfect for Clay. He really only had to watch for bogs full of methane gas, which exploded dangerously with his flame. He was never injured by such catastrophes, but he tried to avoid causing them. He was always haunted by the memory of a rabbit, dark brown fur one moment and crispy flesh the next.

He didn't go to school. Never had, for obvious reasons. His grandmother had homeschooled him in Massachusetts. His father claimed to in Louisiana, but was usually away at work, avoiding his matchstick child, so Clay taught himself.

He grew older, spending roughly ten percent of his days sleeping, forty percent studying, and fifty percent wandering the savage forest separating his home from the nearest town. When he was freshly fifteen, he met a girl in the woods, walking without destination to avoid her parents, and convinced himself he was in love with her. After they had been talking for nearly two weeks, both in the forest and over the phone, she introduced Clay to one of her friends, a boy, and he convinced himself he was in love with him as well. Neither seemed to find as much interest in him, but he didn't mind.

Two months passed and Clay was lucky, never had so much as a flicker around his friends. Then, days into the third month, he caught fire, burning the boy's left arm and singeing a large chunk of the girl's hair. Both had run and never returned his calls or returned to the forest.

He gave up, staying in his home, never touching his books, trying to sleep but barely succeeding.

Clay entertained himself with daydreams. He dreamt of a normal life, where he went to school, had his parents, didn't fall in love so easily. He dreamt of not being fire.

He dreamt of being normal.