33
Good morning, it’s 4:49 a.m., and this is my last match. After I lit a few corners of paper and cardboard, I let the match fall onto a fold of a Circuit City flyer where I’m sure it will contribute its pittance.
What’s the best thing I can think of at this very second? Best thing. Let’s think. All right. Okay, one time Claire and I were driving to the beach and Claire pointed out a Yield sign standing by a field. “Mist,” she said. The early sun was heating up the reflective substance on one side of the sign and evaporating the dew or night-rain that was clinging to it. Morning mist rising from the Yield sign against a field: that’s one thing. Here’s another. Claire and I were sitting on the couch. This was seven years ago. I was doing some work, she was reading a paperback and giving our infant son milk from her breast. “I’ve got a new way to turn the page,” she said. I looked over. One of her arms was holding up Henry and so was out of commission. The other was holding the paperback splayed open. When it was time, she put the tip of her tongue on the lower right-hand corner of the right-hand page. The tip held the paper, and by moving her head to the left, she could make the page slide and buckle, whereupon her thumb dove underneath it and was able to send it over to the little finger on the far side. So, Claire turning the pages with her tongue: that’s another thing.
You know what I think I’ll do? I think I’ll creep back in bed, very carefully so as not to joggle too much, pull the covers over me, relax all my muscles, and go back to sleep for a little while next to her, then get up at a normal time.
I tossed my apple core into the fire, and then, as an afterthought, I crunched the empty matchbox into a mound of orange bits the size of sugar cubes that had fallen away from a log. It caught right away and burned with a generous yellow flame. In thirty seconds it had curled away into a twist of ash and the fire was orange again. I was done.