Burning Alexandria

BURNING ALEXANDRIA

It was a pleasure to see the fire burn.

Irwin Gilbert had managed it with just a magnifying glass, a cotton ball, and what was left of a bottle of 70% isopropyl alcohol, which still bore the Eckerd drugstore label. That bottle had to be three years old, the cotton balls even older. Irwin had a lot of old things squirreled away in his tiny home. They used to call people like Irwin hoarders, but now they would call him a genius, if anyone knew. But if anyone knew, Irwin would be dead.

For safety sake, he'd started the fire in his largest and deepest cooking pot. The one with plastic handles that stuck out to either side like Mickey Mouse's ears. He set the stainless steel container on top of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, then after a moment's consideration, slipped Chicken Soup for the Soul between them. He nurtured the flame first with tissues, then junk mail and newspaper circulars. As the fire grew, smoke began to fill the room, and Irwin started to panic. He'd forgotten about ventilation. Images of Wiley E. Coyote flashed through his mind as he struggled to unearth more of the partially covered window, the only one in the whole house that still admitted light. Digging it out, the room's interior brightened with the white of winter. Nearly blinding himself in the process, Irwin fumbled for the latch as the cloud of smoke rapidly reached gagging potency. He pinched his frozen fingers, crying out in an effort to move the latch, but the metal twist was painted shut. In forty years, Irwin had never opened the window. He had other ones and a front door, but their locations were forgotten long ago.

Exposed to the harsh light, Irwin's living room was little more than a narrow gap between precarious cliffs of books, which ran from floor to ceiling. Hardcovers formed the foundations, trade paperbacks the middle strata, and the little mass markets soared to a cottage-cheese-textured ceiling. The stacks of books were easily eight deep from the narrow corridor to long forgotten walls. Even if he knew where to dig, he'd likely suffer an avalanche that would literally ignite disaster, and there was no guarantee of finding one that still worked.

His eyes watered and stung. The stark winter's light grew hazy as the tiny space filled with smoke. The campfire smell, which had been pleasant at first, now coated his tongue, saturating his nostrils. He began to cough.

Irwin could practically hear the Roadrunner's Meep, meep! mocking him. Wiley E. Coyote, super genius, smothers in his home. Irwin had few choices. Snuff out the fledgling fire and his life along with it or break the window. He couldn't spend another night as cold as the one before. Picking up a copy of Cherie Priest's Boneshaker, he punched the glass.

Thud.

He rolled his stinging eyes and reached for Stephen King's Under the Dome—one thousand seventy-four pages of hardcover, window-shattering goodness. The pane cracked and splintered into jagged blades. Large shards slipped free from their gummy caulk and fell. The two guillotines missed his fingers but cut the otherwise mint-condition dust jacket right across the big white "K" in King.

"Goddamnit!" Irwin cursed, looking at the damage. He should have used Atlas Shrugged instead.

As if summoned by magic, the smoke took notice of the hole and rushed toward it. Irwin moved the pot closer to the window to aid the migration. The fire was already starting to die, and icy air blew in, carrying the occasional snowflake or two. They were the hard sand sort, more ice than flake. By breaking the window, he'd only made his situation worse. If he didn't build up the fire enough to radiate significant heat, he'd freeze to death. A fireplace would have been great, a woodstove outstanding. He'd considered using his old electric stove, but it didn't work—nothing worked anymore. The electricity died two days ago killing it, the television, the lights, and taking the water and furnace as well. That's when things had gotten cold.