From: welshm@mirage.rtp.dg.com (Matt Welsh)
Subject: FIRE GOD, part 1
Date: 7 Jul 92 18:51:25 GMT


                    FIRE GOD, Part 1


I live my life like a donut now. I.e. small, round, cheap, hole in the middle,
etc. Every morning I sit quietly on the stale yellow tray under white lights,
and a hundred hungry senior citizens pass by, point in my direction, maybe
consider having me for breakfast.... but alas, I am never chosen. I sit
complacently behind the other pastries and donuts and await my liberation.
Sooner or later, every donut has his day.

I was not always like this, crusty and sweet-- in fact, there once was a time,
long ago and buried deep in the annals of memory, when I was not a donut
at all. I was a god. Well, in a sense I was, Zeus and the others never
invited me up to Mount Olympus for their wild weekend bashes, but I had
true omnipotence. Let me tell you, it was quite better than this foul
fluffy-doughlike state that I am now, but this is merely my outer skin, my
physical form-- there's a soul in there, somewhere, beneath the chocolate
frosting, laying dormant in this shell of cake. I try every day to accept
the elegiac truth-- the blatant and unignorable reality of it all-- every
morning when I awaken to the sound of that bald fat guy cooing "Time to
make the donuts!" I make my best attempt to really *love* being a donut,
and try to make friends with the other donuts-- but they're not great
conversationalists, if you know what I mean.

But I cannot reject the obvious-- that the rigors of pastry life are many,
and rare spurts of joyful emotion are few and far between. Just last week I
went through the most tormenting experience that a donut can go through--
I had fallen in love with this beautiful creme-filled cherub of a tart,
her powdered sugar coating was like heaven to me. All I would think about
was squirming myself over to her tray, sidle over the edge, sort of meander
over to her side and say, "Hey, babe, can I taste your creme filling?"
but of course, having no arms or legs, I was motionless. Besides, she would
never talk to me anyway. So as I sat there in endless torment, lusting
over this angelic concoction like a schoolboy, the days passed by, and every
minute my love for her grew deeper.

One morning, to my ultimate horror, I watched as this innocent naive
seventh-grader pointed right at her, and the fat guy at the counter quietly
picked her up and put her in a little paper bag along with a few napkins.
I couldn't watch-- the love of my donut life was gone! But as I peeked over
the other donuts in my tray, I think I saw the little brat take her out
of the bag and bite deeply into her soft spongy flesh as he walked out the
door. I burned with anger and jealousy. True, she was dead and gone,
but this prepubescent urchin had the ultimate experience-- to taste the
creme of that beautiful donut-cum-succubus.

I will never forget that day.
And I will write songs about it endlessly in my head
  the great
    sweet thing
  who never
  said a word

But enough of this gay banter. Enough of the present, or the future, let's
talk about the past. My godlike past, where I was omnipotent-- not quite
as exciting as being impotent, you know-- but enough. The donut life is
bland, yet a stark reality in my confused maelstrom of emotions and desires,
so let us move back to when I was all-powerful.

It was a Saturday night, and Beth and I had just finished up her last dime...
I was feeling rather introspective... the trees were talking to me
and the ground beneath my feet as a soft blanket of earth-soil-flesh,
singing my name... we went back to her house and she took a shower while
I watched the ants crawl over and inside her discarded sneakers. I know
that this is not a normal reaction to the stuff, however, little did I know
what was about to happen to me. So keep your pants on.

"Honey?"

"Yes, Beth?"

"Um, get me a towel," she said as she stood there, naked, dripping on the
carpet. She smiled sweetly at me-- the steam was gathering around her
nubile feet from the shower, which she had left running.

I could take a hint.

Beth has a small tattoo of a rose around her ankle, which is barely
noticeable except when she has her shoes off (which is most of the time,
I should add). We got our tattoos together one night, but I didn't want
mine to be so obvious-- so I just got a flaming pentagram encircling my
navel. Beth likes it.

Later on, while we reclined on each other in post-coital bliss, Beth
put out her cigarette and looked at me.

"You know what?"

"No, what?"

"I hate it when you do that," she said.

"Sorry. What?"

"I want to blow up something."

"Cool. Go for it." This sounded like it could be fun, and I imagined the
car across the street erupting in flames...

And you can guess what happened. Of course, the family who lived across
the street had insurance, but the forensics team could never figure out
what had caused their '90 Volvo to suddenly immolate itself. I'm not
quite sure myself how I learned to control this new power of being
able to cause anything to spontaneously combust... for a while Beth
and I could never eat at home because I would constantly cause whatever
we were cooking to blow up. The mere thought of flames or heat would
surely do damage. Then there was the time that she made the mistake of
taking me to one of those Japanese steak houses-- where the chef pours
gasoline all over the cooking surface, and lights it... poor guy.
The one good thing was, after that, we were the only couple at the table.

Beth was able to keep my mind on other things besides thought-induced
pyrotechnics. She also made her best attempt at keeping me away from
any fire-related media or paraphernalia-- i.e. she quit smoking around
me, turned off the TV whenever "Backdraft" came on HBO, she hid the
flamethrower and canceled her subscription to "Pyrotechnics Weekly".
Yes, it seemed that our lifestyle was definitely going to change... but in
some ways it was really great. I was a modern-day Prometheus. I had the
power of fire at my control. Fuck this, I said, and we never had to worry
about getting the barbecue to light again.

Oh, yes, I know it sounds really great-- but there was so much I had to
be careful about. I found that I couldn't watch any speech by George Bush
on TV... and I was too afraid to really put my powers to any use besides
the occasional birthday-candle lighting or quick char-broiling of the
evening's steaks.

And yet, I'm not quite sure what caused all of this to happen-- I think
it's Beth's fault... but as it turns out, this was only the beginning.
Sure, I was a Fire God, but there's so much more to being a god these
days, isn't there?


Matt Welsh     welshm@dg-rtp.dg.com
UNIX-SQA, Data General Corporation RTP        Office: +1 919 248 6070

  DG/UX Software Quality Assurance. Less talk. More rock.