I started writing this yesterday. I will update accordingly:

Strike a match, light a fire. Strike a match light a fire. Strike a match, light a fire. Strike a fire, light a match. Strike a fire, light a match…

He sat at a desk. Not his desk. A desk. Two cylindrical white pills lay on the desk that wasn’t his. Using the index and middle fingers of his right hand, he slowly slid the pills to the edge of the desk and off. They dropped without a sound into his left hand. Without a sound. No sound.

Keeping the odorless, white pills in the palm of his left hand, and using the muscles in his shoulder, forearm, wrist and jaw, he threw the pills into his mouth. He swallowed. Without a sound. Still no sound.

There was a smell. It was a sharp smell. It engulfed the room. If he hadn’t been wearing plugs in his nose, he would have passed out. He imagined what it might look like if he could see smells. He imagined vapor trails. He imagined rockets reaching sonic boom through a layer of ice crystals. His mind saw the word searing. His mind saw the word charred.

He wished he had a cigarette. He wished they still made cigarettes. He remembered being a teenager. He remembered the illusion that cigarettes were still cool. He wished he could feel that illusion again. One last time.

The matches were off to the left hand side of the desk. He had to beg a guy at a pawn shop for them.

He pulled a pocket knife from inside his jacket. Another relic. Another piece of history forgotten and finished with. Thrown away. Discarded. How long would it take before he was forgotten? How long had he already been forgotten?

He pulled the blade from its enclosing. He pressed its sharp edge against the palm of his left hand. He pressed hard. He pressed harder. Slowly, he ran it across his palm. Red. Crimson. Blood flowed from his hand. He felt nothing. Not a thing. He felt glad the pills had worked. It was time.

Strike a match, light a fire. Strike a match, light a fire. Strike a match, light a fire. Strike a fire, light a match. Strike a fire, light a match…

He stood over the bed now – it was where he had dumped most of the kerosene. A desk and a bed, the only fixtures in a cheap, rotting hotel room.

He pulled a match from its box and began thumbing it between his fingers – the way he used to do with pencils and pens in grade school. In, out, over, around. In, out, over, around. In, out, over, around. Strike a match, light a fire. In, out, over, around. Strike a fire light a match. In, out, over around. Strike a match, light a fire. In, out, over around. Strike a fire, might a match.

He stared at the bed. What went wrong, he thought. What happened to the future he had envisioned? The future he had waited on so desperately. Everything had always seemed better in the future. Things will happen. Things will change. Everything will be new and exciting. What had happened to all of that?

He pinched his arm. Nothing. Perfect.

He lit the match. “Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.” He wished.

He dropped the match. It fell onto the bed and the a chemical reaction took place, turning the once moth-eaten, decaying, randomly assorted color scheme of a down comforter into a final resting place for his hopes of the future.

“It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blacked and changed. With the [match] in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the taters and charcoal ruins of [the future].”

…

He woke up in a cheap, probably rotting hotel room.