Accessible Gasoline

… If it wasn’t for the easily accessible gasoline, probably, this story would never be told. But the gasoline was accessible, accelerating something ridiculous to a catastrophe. The bodies are still coming in. At the last formal count, it was seventeen dead, and five people with third degree burns over ninety percent of their body. I believe after everything is said and done, the total count will be twenty three. The five people with severe burns, we’re afraid, will join the other seventeen people --- ‘in a jiffy’. Sorry.

So, he, the person responsible, will definitely be indicted for arson and first degree murder. I believe it’s a slam dunk case. We have him, with all the important questions. Concerning motivation (Lost direction?), and how, easily established, gasoline, where ---at the house with the brick façade, and who, no problem there either. He was standing as the fire trucks came, almost completely soaked in gasoline.

And again the simplicity continues as we seek out the genealogy of the aforementioned events. It started as a boy running in and out of the uneven ruts formed by herds of animals. Yes! It started, as that boy, in his farm town with the late summer breezes, as he ran hidden inside rows of corn nine feet tall. As he grew, eventually, he had everything a person need possess to be a professional athlete; speed, endurance, strength, and the things that couldn’t be measured ---most of all.

But as he grew-up playing football in his farm town, around him were the obsessively straight rows of corn, and only here was where he felt safe, and in control. In the huddle, as they discussed which play they’d run next, they’d always talk with North as their reference point.

It was easy, rigid and ---Always! All you had to do was establish a reference point. That was accomplished in seconds, since everything in all directions ran …Straight!

For example, the often-used ‘hook’ pattern would be described as a run north, stop, and then turn south, or, “North South!” It didn’t matter if the sun was in your eyes, or West, that direction could still be called North. It didn’t matter, but to him and his football friends where the compass aimed. What mattered was a seeable direction.

Obviously this poor bastard doesn’t have a chance. He went off to college and got lost, in every direction. His depression soon consumed him, and he drove by, aforementioned crime scene, the building with the brick façade, now torched, and stopped. It was the bricks; the bricks running in rows, up and down in every direction that motivated the catastrophe.

He felt safe here, so this story goes. But he felt a little cold ---and with his bucket he went off to a gas station, just next-door, because he needed ---“To make it feel nice and warm ---just like home!”