May 29, 2025
Regarding self-immolation, I am terribly afraid. This makes a bit of sense on its face, of course: fire’s already frighting before one even considers the flesh, but once the fire and flesh have touched the result is terror itself: the melting and the charring and pain as well, or perhaps more shockingly the skeleton, which seems (once the fire has reached a certain cohesion) to take over for the musculature as the body’s defining shape. This is nothing more than the fear of fire, of course: a fear as common as worker ants or potholes, as meaningless (almost) as natural fact. Our focus then should be on the words themselves: immolation and its prefix self.
Immolation, as well, is perhaps self-evident: a fear of flame to its completion, as it were: sensation to the point sensation ends. Self is the part that’s strange, as self must muddle motivations. One doesn’t burst to flame as by mistake, as in spontaneous combustion, but rather methodically engages at first in a simple act of purchase, in order to gain such fluid as gasoline, perhaps as well (depending on personal habit) a lighter, the first of several soaking rags, a video camera, microphone equipment, an inconspicuous car, a sufficient map. One does not transform oneself by accident either but rather studies considered patterns of security cameras, memorizes guard schedules, routes, calculates moments long enough a body, once burnt, cannot be doused back to partial silencing recovery by its bold statement’s first audience, the simple or instrumental protectors of property and the sort at the scene of the crime, security types, idiot viewers, certain the greatest act a man might partake in is to recover another’s life, as death by definition (the fool believes) is always meaningless, or if it contains a meaning it’s only a demerit of a sort, a failure maintain duty, not a transmission, one much for meaningful than words, so strong it defies and redefines reality: I at least take no part. The act must be intentional. I, the immolatee, must control it.
j, my counselor tells me, don’t you find the meaning of your terrors apparent? Recall previous discussions of your time spent underground. Not many people have dealt with the literal experience of being held against their will, tied in an acrylic box beneath the earth, dirt and worms and falling rain so tantalizing visible overtop one’s head, etc. The body finds a stasis, you know, with habit. Perhaps we can presume this one result of a sudden resumption of free will, a renewed sort of terror in what you’re now able to do. What if control’s not so different from its lack? Are you understanding?
I close my eyes, we’re only on the phone: she doesn’t notice. These thoughts (even my fears) are just ideas. I am material. I try for the moment to focus on my breath. No matter what I do, the breaths go on.