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PRODIGY IS, AT ITS essence, adaptability and persistent, positive obsession. Without persistence, what remains is an enthusiasm of the moment. Without adaptability, what remains may be channeled into destructive fanaticism. Without positive obsession, there is nothing at all.
Which is why Alexandria Moores could never be a prodigy. Not for lack of grit, mind you. A path of endless destruction has a way of keeping you on your toes.
No, she thought, gripping the can of lighter fluid tighter in chalky white hands. Pathological fixation, that is the word she must label herself with. Taking a shaky step back, vision swimming as she could hear her companions whooping, hollering--and no doubt, killing-- in unplaceable directions, she dimly wondered in the long-forgotten recesses of her mind what she could have done before her life had taken such a path.
After all, she had been just another normal seventeen-year-old teenager born of “good stock” just three years ago—how did it all go so wrong? Well, it didn’t matter at all anymore, whispered her smothered brain, annoyed at the attempt at complicated thought when the ‘ro was doing its best to shut all that off. Just focus on that “buzz”.
Anders, a big and tall handsome Swede, finally got bored of playing a twisted game of hide-and-seek with the richlings’ kids and struck his match. The relief in this instance, of at long last being able to reach that euphoric high that had been bubbling up inside since the ‘ro took effect—no, ever since even the plans to pillage and plunder were made—was even still in such a titillating moment not overshadowing a lazy glance thrown at the scars that riddled Anders’s countenance. In her opinion it had only ever made him hotter. The effect was only diminished by his constant proclaiming that it was done unto him by a bear of some kind, though there was absolutely no way of that—Moores herself believed it was likely just a dog that he either didn’t see enough of to tell the difference or was lying about just to puff out his chest.
“Hey Moores! Y'ready to watch ‘em blow?” He sent a cocky grin her way, pointing at the two kids they managed to refrain from immediately killing off with their guns, tied up by the wrists to some tiny growing tree. The ground around them soaked in gasoline, with ripped bark and chaff surrounding them as some sort of kindling. The kids had to be around seven and nine respectively, though their bones showed through their skin and their clothes were sagged and baggy. It was strange. You’d think that the damned lucky kids of a rich enough family to live inside some walls would be a bit better off. Even she and her brother had been better off!
Their faces were frozen in terror as their eyes flicked over at her. As Anders approached, however, one slow step at a time to prolong the climb to the climax, the younger of the two started screaming and crying for help, for their mother. Of course, all that did was attract more people to come watch, leering eyes and grinning painted faces all around. They reminded her of that smiling cat from the fairy tale books she was read as a child, but with more danger and fanaticism in the way their lips curled up.
As Anders took his final step, towering over the scrawny children and grinning at the little flame in his hand, he paused for dramatic effect making sure everyone around had their eyes on him. Then he dropped the match.
The husks took fire quickly atop the bone-dry and dusty soil, as the youngest kid was reduced to horrific sobs. Everyone else watched, euphoria in their eyes like hungry piranhas in a frenzy. God, it looked amazing. Not like she believed in God anymore. Who could, on the streets of North Carolina? Every time she experienced the delicious high, she was reminded of that one book her father had in his study, back when she lived with him. “Fire is bright and fire is clean,” and that what attracts men to fire is its constant motion. It must be true, as she felt both her own and those around her’s bodies get filled with the desperate desire to move, move, move. More gasoline was poured, more little fires started. She herself felt her feet start running around, pouring gasoline on all she thought was flammable joyously as if it would never run out. Whether she or they died that night from the very fires they started was of no concern to herself or the others at the time, nor was it ever truly. If one did succumb, then it would simply be another body to watch burn, more kindling to the fire, a higher high. It was how her brother had died, after all, and back then she couldn’t cared less as she watched his painted green and yellow face turn from lecherous elation to pain and terror as his shirt caught ablaze. Their hair was plucked out so as not to catch aflame, but that didn’t stop fire from spreading
When Moores had come down from the high though, it was a completely different story. What was she even still doing here? It was because of him that she had tried ‘ro for the first time anyway, in front of all his friends. There was no way she could have said no. It was easy to get it after the first time anyway, having been from a wealthy politician's family. She remembered swearing on her family’s Bible in front of her father that she would never drink a drop of alcohol until her grandparents died or she turned twenty-five. She supposed she must’ve kept that oath now, though she would have to wonder if – if God was real—did she still qualify for heaven? He had been so casual about it too, Moore’s brother, offering the ‘ro up to her with a twinkle of mischief in his eye.
“You want a pop?” As if it were all a fun little joke, like using lollipops to look like cigarettes back when they were young. They weren’t young anymore. Her face felt stiff and saggy with the cracked pink and orange paint. Her tears that day had been enough to streak the paint on her face.
Why was she here? Her brain pondered idly as the warmth of the billowing flames licked her skin. It felt like a furnace. It felt amazing.
If I don’t go to hell when I die, I might go to heaven.
She hated her father. She hated the sight of people dying on the streets from the fortified truck’s window. She had wanted to do something good, to help. Had she?
She looked back in the direction of those tied-up kids, and wondered how many more were dying in the fires springing up all around her.
If I don’t go to hell when I die, I might go to heaven.
Her heart raced fast as the fire began to surround her. A person holding a can of gasoline, however close to empty, couldn’t be expected to live too long in the middle anyway. Most were staying on the outskirts, the other sides of the fire-starting so they could easily retreat. But that didn’t give nearly as much pleasure as being enclosed, where all sides one could see was fire. Nobody would care too much anyway. Perhaps Anders, but he would live. And she would see her brother again.
A life of ransacking and burning, a life of hedonism and desire, would never amount to anything good and beautiful in this world. The amount of people she shot and killed. The amount of people they strung up and tortured for the present fun of it. Was it still fun? Only fire, with its cleansing properties, purging all that disgusted them could be considered something beautiful she created. And then, it was only beautiful to her. Even still, so long as the group left something, anything, for the street poor to scavenge after the fact, they would be singing paints’ names in praise. She’d heard it many a time before—that they were truly doing something good in the world. Getting rid of all that dare show off their wealth and distributing it to the smartest of the poor.
Hah. As if it were for any of that that Moores and her companions did anything at all. It was all for this blitzed fire-hot feeling in her stomach. Flames grew ever closer and Moores knew it would certainly be her end. No matter. She lived and she hurt and she ripped and she burned. Now it was simply her left to burn. What else was there to be done? Pouring the remaining gasoline on her torn-up shirt, she grinned a wild grin only an inebriated nut could accomplish. Her lips cracked in the blistering heat, spreading like it threatened to split her face in half. Staring down her death until the end, she thanked her brother for all he had done.
If I don’t go to hell when I die, I might go to heaven.
But probably not.