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" Passing the dark, low fields just south of Harrows, Smoke saw a scarecrow that reminded him, in shape, of his mother. Inspired by it, he imagined her burning. He imagined the dresses from her closet … the curls in her blond hair … the rims of her glasses … all of it and everything blistering, bending, burning.
The fire he imagined for her was blue and smelled like childhood. And childhood reminded him of the children he once knew; he imagined a girl named Merrily melted to the shape of a chair, another, Henry, sitting upon her in a classroom.
He'd like to burn them all. Every face he'd ever seen.
Excited now, Smoke saw the mothers of these former schoolmates rushing from their homes, desperate feet pattering on the porch boards, able to discern the smell of their own child burning above all others. Smoke would be there when they came. He'd be there with a piece of meat on a stick.
Dinner over childhood's fire.
Hey, Ma! This meat only gets better the longer it cooks!
Moved, Smoke imagined more.
Men in suits bursting into flame upon exiting church. Families sitting down to eat burnt food, blackened bread, ashen meals upon scalding-hot plates.
Come on, Billy! Eat your fire! EAT YOUR FIRE! "
― Josh Malerman , Unbury Carol
