Chapter 1

Story I'm working on, please critique! 

  I am the proprietor of life. Cinder is my morning coffee, and the furniture roasts like beans.  My arrest was not surrender but an attribution, an artist composing a signature on work.  I was merely freeing them from a life of corporate servitude, and many mid life crisis robots will say it was a horrible act yet secretly wish they could just melt away in heat.  This heat and light is a plaything, for it is enticing and controllable. I understand that psychologists and criminologists will want to tease apart my mind, attributing certain deeds to certain parenting flaws, brain damage from drug abuse or the sort. 

  I am doing the work of the Gods.  You may believe you have left the pilot light on for just a moment; this is my diesel being poured down your chimney at night.  You certainly did not leave the heat on, but my lighter has been gracefully discarded into the accelerant.  It will consume your logs, than your rug. The smooth curved bathtub will be the sole remaining testament to your life.

I believe you think the flames are beautiful as they consume your drapes, and if you do not I don’t care.  Sweat drips from your forehead to the bridge of your nose, tickling you before it dives to the fine maple floors of your kitchen.  Your eyes will squint through the smoke, and I will only wonder why you fight so hard to stay alive, so you can return to your box, be paid in rectangles, and buy square cars.  Your home is now anything but uniform, and if you could speak you would surely thank me.

I am doing the work of the sun.  If it should content me the last light you see will be my fire, my work.  And I do wish it.  I no longer linger for their attention, for I am far above celebrity status.  The majority cannot appreciate what goes into a controlled fire, for there are chemicals to be measured, changes in pressure and temperature to account for, and finding the people who deserve a visit to be found and swiftly made sure to never be found again.  A cell surrounded by criminals, amateurs at art.  Your crude stabbing or drug deal is misguided.  That home on 23^rd and Parker was a Monet. 

I am keeping you awake when day subsides.  You will smell the trash you did not take out and convince yourself it is gas, convince yourself your daughters night-light is a spark, and you will go far madder than I, even though I am contained for now.  Fear not little worker bee, for I will soon burn your hive, your honey is not sentimental, only carbon. It is not important where I am, but where I am going. My first of thousand steps in the desert has been taken.  I have been asked why I created those portraits that were homes, now cinder and memories. Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. People were happier living without being forced into choices of consumerism, and I will make the decision they want to make but cannot; live simpler or don’t live.  For now I am in cellblock 14, with the people who accidentally were caught, people devoid of light.  They either have naturally twisted minds that couldn’t control themselves, or they took too much and made a poor choice. It is not important how slowly you are going as long as you don’t stop. I am alone in my cell because they are worried I would create friction, and this is true. These bars are an icy nemesis, and the moist atmosphere is a contrast to the heat I generate.

 For a while I cannot leisure under the warm rays, and this does not concern me because it does not matter where I am, but where I am going.  I cannot tell you how I will escape, but it will involve a few slit throats and no hard feelings.  I wouldn’t let myself out, and I understand society has done what they think is best.  These walls are thick, but my thoughts allow me to slip through the cracks and grip the daylight with my mind. It feels like spring.