Flicker
By Vitoria Wiese
Flicker flicker goes the flame,
Flicker flicker never tame.
Fire so hot, fire so soft,
Flicker flicker where’s the pain?
You know, I took up smoking. Not for the joints – I couldn’t care less for them. But…It gives me a reason to hold on to his lighter, to watch the flame whenever I want, to remember…him.
Over the years, psychiatrists have been learning about the psychological response that is Stockholm syndrome. With this syndrome, hostages form sympathetic bonds with their captors, coming to understand why their abusers act the way they do and actually agreeing with them. In this piece, one woman finds herself held hostage by a crazed pyromaniac. His love for fire is transferred to his hostage, and the result is petrifying. “Flicker”, by Vitoria Wiese.
Of course, this isn’t his lighter, so you don’t need to take it from me. But I think of it as, in a way, all lighters belong to him. Because the fire belonged to him. It obeyed him, his every whim, his every wish, it would lick and caress and consume whatever he deigned to release it upon; he was the fire and it was his soul, and that was how he made his mark on this world. How he made his mark on me.
I know you think I’m crazy. But I’m not. And neither is he. I can prove it! It all started with that first fire. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was out walking my dog; it was late, pitch black, couldn’t see a thing. But then, I did see. I saw the fire through the trees, and I went towards it like I was hypnotized. Just as I climbed out of the ditch I saw him; he was standing right by this house and it was up in flames, a huge bonfire, and he held a woman by the arm. It looked like she was screaming at him but I couldn’t hear a thing over the burning. Next thing I know, she was the one burning. I screamed, and he looked at me. I tried to run but he got to me, he held me so close. He told me he couldn’t let me go. I remember being so scared, but looking back I don’t really know why. He took me to his cabin in a different stretch of forest and locked me up. I still don’t know what ever happened to my dog.
He kept me there, tied up to a chair for the first few weeks. And he talked to me. About this (pulls out lighter). The fire. It’s his god, you know. I didn’t understand at first, but he taught me, he explained everything. Fire, this element of the universe that transforms, that gives light and heat and energy to all of existence, making this world beautiful. But there’s so much ugliness here, too. The fire, it gives us beauty and life but we take that gift and distort it and make it ugly, so how does the fire respond? It’s powerful enough to snatch away the ugliness and devour it so it can start over again. For us. That night with the woman and the fire, there was too much ugliness there. All he did was allow the fire to do its work, to reshape, to end the ugliness that we create in ourselves. It’s beautiful, really. It’s beautiful what he did.
He did it for me, too. He showed me that I have my own ugliness, but I could get rid of it if I just let him help me. All it would take is a little flame, he said. It would burn all the dirt and grime away. But like any purification, it would hurt. So he taught me the poem so that I could get through the pain. He started with my fingers, my pinky first. He took his lighter, and holding my shaking hand steady, he would say:
Flicker flicker goes the flame,
Flicker flicker never tame.
Fire so hot, fire so soft,
Flicker flicker where’s the pain?
That first time the pain was everywhere; my finger was the only thing in that flame but, ah, it was everywhere! I was so weak that first time. I screamed, I screamed! But he held me down; he was strong for me. The smile he gave me the entire time through it – he was so happy for me…
I got better at it, handling the pain. Over the next months he still had to hold me down but, inside, I was glad it was happening. I was allowing the universe to cleanse me…
I asked him once why I was the only one getting cleansed, why he wasn’t getting burned. He told me the fire speaks to him and that it wasn’t his time yet. But I didn’t understand. He loved the flame so much; it brought him so much joy. I didn’t know if he thought he didn’t deserve it, deserve to experience the purification through fire. I knew he did, though; he had earned it. And I wanted to be the one to give it to him just like he gave it to me.
That night, as I watched him sleep, I knew it was time. I was scared, though. So I went to the mirror to look at my reflection, to remind myself of what the fire had done for me. My face was unrecognizable. The blistering pockets of skin were oozing puss, my ear seemed to be dripping like candle wax, my lips were mutilated and seeping…ugliness. All the ugliness was pouring out of me. I didn’t want to experience it on my own anymore. He deserved this, too! This goodness. This rebirth.
So with new courage I went to the bed, and reaching out my melted hand I picked up his lighter, and ever so gently I held his hand in mine.
Flicker flicker goes the flame
Flicker flicker never tame –
And then suddenly he’s awake and he’s grabbing me by the hair, screaming at me, swearing at me, and he throws me to the ground. How dare you, he screams. Are you trying to murder me? I don’t know what he’s talking about, I was just trying to help, to make you beautiful! To give you the fire!
He keeps screaming at me but I don’t know what he’s saying anymore. I couldn’t hear him over the burning. His lighter would sometimes get stuck and…it had fallen into his bed sheets. He was sitting in a cocoon of flames, wrapped in their embrace, finally, holding him like a long lost lover. He kept screaming, and it took me back to my first screams, how it felt to be caressed for the first time by the flame. And I knew, I knew he was going to be okay. But I needed to help him through it, just like he helped me.
Fire so hot, fire so soft,
Flicker flicker where’s the pain?
(9:33)
Lindsay Holy Family School 