This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v085) (the August 2010 Issue)		Order this issue from our printer as an ISSN# paperback book: or as the ISBN# book “clearing the debris”:

Order this writing in the 2010 collection book of July-December prose from “Down in the Dirt”:		click on the book cover for an author & poem listing, order the 5.5" x 8.5" ISSN# book order the 6" x 9" ISBN# book

Fireball

Jon Brunette

    “We should play fireball.”
    When the boy spoke, his words poured waves of relief off Mark’s hot sweaty body, especially after three hours. The friend said, “Why don’t we play fireball?” After several hours on the field, boredom held Mark as powerfully as his girlfriend always would. Without her to excite, he could just impress his buddy. And his friend hoped to show machismo in a new sport. Mark wanted to keep his friends, as anyone would. To do so, he would act brutal to weaker classmates, bloody their noses and blacken their eyes, to look manly to his buddy and sexual to the hot chicks. Usually, it worked.
    Mark agreed; they should break the monotony. “Only our sticks will touch the ball, I suppose? It couldn’t harm us, could it?” Wiping perspiration off his forehead, he smiled. Any activity besides the hockey would relax him; he didn’t want to quit, he just couldn’t play hockey anymore. A lot of people hunger for new challenges. With a certain amount of jeopardy, activity pumps the blood, quickens the heart; it becomes flying down the highway at ninety-miles-per-hour.
    His friend said, “We’ll play fireball before anyone in our school will.” Mark shook his head inquisitively. “We have sticks—they’ll keep fire off our clothes. I wouldn’t lie to my friends. Why should I lie? Besides, I’d burn as quickly as you. Seriously, can you play hockey or what? Well, prove your skills, boy!”
    Grinning, Mark chased the ball. With it in his hands, the boy brought the yellow ball to their truck. He handed the object to his friend. Reluctantly, Mark nodded. “Okay, we’ll play fireball—just don’t burn my clothes.”
    With light in his eyes, the friend dipped the ball in the can. Mark dropped his Zippo on the fuzz. After the ball burst into flame, Mark lit his black cigar. They batted the ball like professionals. While they did, the ball blasted fiery lines in the brush until the weeds glowed brilliantly. They touched the ball between sticks jammed into mud. Slapping the fireball, Mark laughed; an unholy trooper just off the battlefield to fight the Devil would envy his laughter. As loudly, his friend laughed.
    When the ball batted back to Mark, he whipped it around his body, between his feet, and finally, through the poles. As professionals would with a major trophy, he lifted his stick. A warm sensation touched his shoes. With a puff of smoke, the ball had bounced off the shrubbery. Quickly, it dribbled behind Mark, just a blur like a really big firefly. As it jumped, the object lifted Mark’s jeans by his ankle. As though his body oozed lighter fluid, the ball brought flames into his face. Climbing his clothes, the inferno burned his eyes as painfully as his thick cigar would.
    His flesh burned to the material around his body. Below those clothes, his skin melted like cheese in the middle of a sandwich; it caused him to leap as wildly as naked beachcombers do on hot sand. Mark jumped quicker and quicker, until he looked through a thick haze that engulfed his body. Painfully, the fire wrapped around him like heavy wool blankets; they burned like bubbly liquid that wouldn’t shake off. Carried on the breeze, a smell as thick as tar put bile in the windpipe of his friend. He could barely speak to his phone. Before the ambulance blared, Mark stopped any and all movement; he lay stiffly, with his flesh black and flaky.
    Death brought respect that few achieve. Everyone who’d lived with Mark bowed at his funeral. When the principal planted a tree in his honor, those who could recall their noses broken recalled when real authority had fractured their skulls verbally and he would help them to rebel. With a black cap on his shaggy head, one student spoke for everyone: “I wish for Mark to live eternally somewhere happier than our community.”

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...