Microfiction: The Burning Word

I tell my therapist I broke into my childhood home with a flashlight and crowbar. Boards on the windows were rotting. Ruined rugs and dirty glass covered the floors.

I spotlit one moldering fragment at at time. The couch springs were exposed through the blackened upholstery. Class of ’11 was graffitied on the dining room wall.

I went to the back bathroom and bent over the tub. The rubber drain stop was dark with soot and mold. I pulled it free.

The silent flame burning clean, blue smoke was still inside the drain. I climbed into the bathtub. Black leaves crunched under my sneakers as I knelt so the smoke could write its slow cursive onto my ear.

The smoke was calm and unsurprised, like no time had passed. It asked, What did you first dream? Do you have sympathy for your spine? What will you be afraid of tomorrow?

I don’t tell my therapist how I answered. I made sharp shapes with my mouth, but no sounds. I licked the back of my teeth and my tongue pulsed frantically against my palate.

“Did you have any insights?” she asks. Insights into why I burned the house down, she means.

I say nothing, but my mouth starts its rapid, silent sequence. She screams, but as she grips the arms of her chair and the rims of her eyes blister, even as smoke rises from her ear, I don’t stop. I think I never will.