Part VII: Time Warp 2000’s – Cut! #14 (Chapter 116)

I had almost forgotten about the matches, but when I opened the drawer to put away the bikinis, I remembered:

I had wrapped my slip around the box and shoved it to the back.

Now I take the box and carry it into the kitchen where I sit at the dinette.

The outer wrap is red, blue, and white, end flaps tucked and overlapped rather haphazardly, as if the contents were just afterthoughts.

Still, if it weren’t for the lettering, you might think it were a present. The design is no-nonsense, ordinary ‒ what you might expect from a product that has been on the market for a long time, one invented solely out of necessity.

 

Front side:

(the logo, a blue diamond with cross-hatching trimmed in white) centered in the logo, the word

 

diamond

then

 

SAFETY * STRIKE ON BOX

MATCHES

3 BOXES

250 MATCHES PER BOX

TOTAL: 750 MATCHES

 

Back Side:

<Logo>

SAFETY * STRIKE ON BOX

KITCHEN MATCHES

Keep away from children

STRIKE-ON-BOX-ONLY

CAUTION: CLOSE BOX

BEFORE STRIKING MATCH

ENCIENDA EN CAJA SOLAMENTE

AVISO: CIERRE LA CAJA

ANTES DE ENCENDER EL FOSFORO

Peligro - No Para El Uso De Ninos

 

<Barcode>

 

The box has an odd smell, a sulfurous, woody smell, the smell of a fire not yet burning ‒ but not a muted, controlled scent, either, for it reminds me that in the right conditions, the contents could easily consume everything in my house and cut off my escape route.

When you shake the box a certain way, you can almost hear a clink like that of ice chips in a glass ‒ fire and ice together ‒ but mostly you’ll hear the muffled shuffling of sticks.

This is my gift to myself, so I must unwrap gently.

I try not to tear the paper, but it is fragile, and I cannot avoid tearing small holes in each flap.

After unwrapping the paper, I discover three smaller boxes, which I stack together. Then I fold the wrapper flat ‒ precisely and neatly ‒ so that just the front shows. When I slide open one of the boxes, 250 red-tipped matches fall to the floor, piling up like Pick-Up Stix, random and skewed.

I try fitting them back inside the box.

Why is it that once you spill something, it never goes back quite the same?

Now I have a box that won’t close and a lid that no longer fits.

I drop the extra matches into a small jar. I slide the lid over the remaining matches, but errant sticks still poke upward. I stuff them back.

I notice a piece of cardboard on the floor: a 15-cents-off coupon for something called “Supermatch Firestarters.” I look inside the other boxes. Each one has the same coupon.

As far as I’m concerned, these coupons are superfluous, but Sheldon is a coupon aficionado, so I clip them together and head for Shel’s desk.

I stop.

How can I explain to my husband that I have in my possession 750 wooden matches? No, these are coupons he will have to forfeit.

I drop them inside this envelope ‒ for you ‒ I just want to make up for the censored bikinis.

The matches, about two inches long, are square and splintery. I am somewhat disappointed that they are not very well-made.

Still, they are mine, all mine, and Shel will never find out about them. I pick one up ‒ seems harmless enough.

I strike the match; the tip bursts into flame, sizzling and hot ‒ leaping upward ‒ then subsiding into a steady, blue-edged flame, searing its way down the wood, until it extinguishes itself just above my thumb and index finger, leaving only a glowing tip and a curled, charred skeleton. The scene reminds me of fast-motion film capturing the life cycle of a flower: its sprouting from the earth, looping and curled; then unfurling into a stem; growing; budding; blooming; the fleeting moment of full-blossom; its gradual descent as the edges of its petals brown and wither; its stem shrinking and curling; then death as first frost nips its life.

Only now, I watch as the cycle takes place in front of me.

I strike another match. This time I notice that when the flame moves downward and chars the wood, the match ‒ its tip and stem ‒ resembles a saint in silhouette, his head glowing, his nimbus consuming his body, his head bending in prayer.

*

Sheldon parks the car in front of the small rock house – soon to be scorched rock, rubble, and ashes.

No other houses in sight.

The sun has just set.

A chorus of peepers rivet and katydids chirp.

A tension – maybe static – crackles around us.

Sheet lightning in the distance.

Hot sticky night.

The humidity hangs in the air like a damp towel. I had heard about the humidity in these parts, how it seems to cling to you like a whiny kid, but I never realized how it could sit on you and make you want to beg for relief.

Half moons of sweat drip under my armpits, and my skin feels itchy and raw.

Later, I’ll find out about the chiggers, how they get under your skin and stick to you until they get what they need.

My sister’s thin silhouette poses in the doorway, long cigarette in hand.

My stomach suddenly aches; I don’t want her to see me like this, fat and bloated.

I want to be thin like her, thin like the rest of the world.

Why, for our first meeting, does she have to see me like this?

Why couldn’t I lose this weight, at least for this first time?

Why can’t I have willpower like other people?

I feel trapped in this body, a body I had never asked for or wanted.

I’m a prisoner of biology.

I want to jump into the car and go back to Pennsylvania.

Instead, Sheldon takes my hand and leads me toward the house.

*

If I felt slightly surreal back then, I feel absolutely discombobulated right now.

If Candy and I are twins, shouldn’t I be burning up the rubber on I-83 south to Baltimore?

Why am I hanging back?

Is this how Ruby felt when I dropped unexpectedly into her life?