Sparks

        The lighter must’ve been low on fluid or something, the skin of his thumb felt raw. The two sat huddled over the small makeshift bundle, her hands wrapped around his, doing their best to deny the pestering wind. But every time the spark caught to the fuel, it flourished pitifully for a moment, and then just vanished. How he hated the trademark Chicago climate.

         “You’ve got to be kidding” Reese scoffed. He’d employed the idea of an explosion, in hope to illustrate his wilder side to Heather. He’d been more than happy when she offered to watch, let alone help him to light it up. It just looked like a bulky cluster of cardboard. But it was actually a compilation of last night’s leftover Fourth of July festivities, all fed into one wick.

         “Here, try mine,” she exhorted. Her hands fled from his; the cold afternoon breeze took their place on Reese’s vulnerable skin. She struggled to persuade her fingers in between the peels of her pocket; her tongue sat trapped between her teeth in concentration. Reese couldn’t help himself but to smile at that. After a studious moment, she returned with a fluorescent pink lighter, engraved into its side was the tiny mural of a water-eyed puppy, glaring at something that wasn’t itself pictured. She gently placed it into Reese’s outstretched palm, and offered him a blue-lipped smile. Her hands once again found themselves braced around his, holding the bothersome wind at bay. Despite how it carried itself, the girlish lighter meant business. It took to a persistent flame after just two clicks of the wheel. His hands were shaking from the cold, the lighter rattled about his loose fist. After lowering it to the winding piece of string bleeding from the Frankenstein-monster of fireworks, the flame hungrily began to devour the short wick; the irresponsibly short wick. Boom. Reese’s hands reached the temperature of the sun; his every inch of skin felt like it was impossibly constructed of electricity. His head hit the hard ground, and any vision fled to white.

         A bony grip shook at his shoulder. His charred eyelids bickered as he forced them away from one another. His mother looked down on his bandaged self, tears already cascading over her cheeks and her chin. They didn’t share any words, just a look of concern, concern for a mother’s woe, and concern for a son’s wellbeing. Reese studied the hilly landscape of his bedridden body, an armada of tubes and surgical tape clothed the length of his arms. His mummified chest reminded him of a snow-blanketed field, void of any other natural complications. Whatever drugs they had him on had subsided any of the pain he was allegedly suffering from, except for the unholy burning in his left hand. He attempted to lift his head from the pillow, to further investigate, but fatigue and comatose insisted that he stay on his back.

         “Mom,” he began. “Could you please lift my arm up?” The whimpering woman cautiously approached the bed, and ran her shaky hands under his limb. As if possessed, it sat up, and faced him with a horrible glare. He was without words. Where his beautifully decorated hand had been before he’d fallen into sleep, there now sat a red and black congregation of twisted flesh. Reese thought he might faint, had it not been out of character for him. A million thoughts raced through his mind, but perhaps most prominent was Heather’s rosy-cheeked face, her smile frozen in time. She would never love him now, she couldn’t. He wanted to cry; he wanted to throw himself through the friendly window. His heart spiked, and jumped up into a hasty rhythm. The troupe of busy monitors behind him argued amongst themselves, in high chirps and whirring sounds. His former hand was absolutely on fire, he wished such flames would harbor in the rest of his body. How could he have been so immature? His mother had scurried from the room in search of a doctor, and was just now returning; but against his wishes, Reese gave into his panic, and was out once more.

         According to the calendar behind the counter, it was September 13th. With an unsure finger, Reese motioned to a green and white packet of cigarettes. The cashier smacked them to the stickered surface, and punched a couple of keys into the body of his register. With his good hand, he shoved the box into his back pocket. All he ever wore anymore were jeans and sweatshirts. Jeans because they fit any non-formal occasion, really; and sweatshirts because the large pockets fantastically hid his embarrassing deformity. The changeless breeze licked at his chapping lips. Every face on the busy sidewalk was the same. All full of determination, all just wanting to get someplace else. Every face on the busy sidewalk was exactly the same; except for one. He would recognize those cheeks anywhere. With one hand jammed into her pocket, she was fussing with a stubborn lighter; a limp cigarette just barely held onto her lips. Reese approached her, anxiously searching the parameters of his pocket for its shape, until his fingers found success.

         “Here, try mine,” he comforted, his eyes fixed expectantly on the young girl’s set. She beamed; her teeth forced the cancerous stick out from her lips and onto the pavement. She drew her arm out of her pocket, and threw them around his midsection. She squeezed him as tight as her tiny frame permitted, then stepped back, and just looked appreciatively into his expression; still with her hands fastened to his waist. Reese looked down, and to his astonishment found a grave similarity. Heather’s right hand was shorter than most, and was entirely cloaked in beige bandages. Upon his noticing, she embarrassedly stuffed the informality back into the depth of her jeans.

         For the first time since his release from the whitewashed halls of the hospital, Reese dragged his wound from his pocket with a bizarre confidence. The bandages at the tip had gone yellow with age. Heather’s eyes paced up and down the sight, her expressions jumped from worry to pity to intrigue to understanding. Her eyes grabbed his, and she rocked forward onto the balls of her feet. Her blossoming lips found their way to Reese’s open-mouthed expression, which after given a moment of realization, accommodated and puckered up as well. The two remained in the moment for what felt like a lifetime, until Heather reeled back slowly, without breaking eye contact. She blindly reached an able hand into Reese’s palm. His fingers tightened around hers, warmth consumed his entire body, his bones forfeited any consistency, they felt like gelatin. His every bit of self trembled with excitement. So this is what it feels like, he thought. Heather turned on her feet, and encouraged him to do the same. They continued down the strip of the bustling avenue, the slow motion world around them trying so desperately to keep up.