The Human Torch

I dreamt last night of a self-immolated man. It was late at night and I was walking home. When I happened upon him, he seemed slightly drunk, determined, perhaps too confident for a man about to light himself on fire. The sidewalk stank of kerosene. Only two other people watched from a distance. He was what appeared to be a street performer. The man's skin glistened in the street light. Then he mumbled something and lit a match. At once his feet were ablaze. He slid calmly forward, over a puddle of fire, yet was somehow he was unharmed. The fire remained contained to his feet, never leaping up his leg or calves. To do such a thing, and with such equanimity, the way he was doing it, disturbed me. He reminded me of a tightrope walker, but walking over burning coals. It was mesmerizing.

But, then, as you might imagine, something went wrong.

As he walked over his small lake of fire, his balance shifted too far to the side and he slipped, as though on ice. The flames jumped up his leg and wrestled him to the ground. He fell with such suddenness. A blanket of flames covered him. I rushed toward the man, pulling off my black fleece jacket to try and use it to beat the flames from his body. But it was too late. He was melting. Literally. The lower half off his body had already turned to liquid and was becoming one with the burning concrete. I watched, helplessly, as he sank and drowned in the flames. I was horrified. I'd never seen anything like it.