With the help of a lighter and some demons, one man decides to exorcise his own past.

by David Paul Nixon

I had been examining the room throughout the afternoon, right down to the tiniest detail. I had identified every stain on the carpet, every nick and scrape on the sideboard when my eyes fixed upon the silver Zippo lighter on the coffee table. I didn’t smoke but she sometimes liked a cigarette to relax after a hard day at work. Worse than any stain, that little silver lighter was hers and it had to go.
 
Then it gave me an idea, the sort of idea that made me snigger. I picked it up and flicked it on once just to see it work, and then I slipped it into my pocket. I had quite a few things in the house that were hers. She hadn’t come to pick them up yet and I suspected that sometime during the week a friend of hers would come for them. I decided to save her the trouble.
 
I pulled her clothes from my wardrobe and emptied out her draw. I had some of her shoes too: a watch, a hairbrush, some cosmetics, an aerosol! Now that would be the icing on the cake. I bundled them together in her spare blanket and threw them out the bedroom window. They crashed onto the back lawn. Then I went to the back of my car and fetched the spare petrol can and shook it out all over the pile with no regard for my own safety or the finely cut grass. I lit up the Zippo and dropped it. The rush of flame almost burnt my eyebrows off.
 
I braced myself for the explosions of the hairspray and deodorant cans and they burst with a satisfying bang. As the fire burnt on I thought of what else I had of hers, the other black stains upon my home that needed to be cleaned away. 

I went through the house and sought them out. I was meticulous in my search; gifts, bits, pieces, letters and anything that was in any way connected to that woman. The need to purify her from my home was intense. I had to cure the pieces of my life that were now poisoned with her presence. I had to expel her, destroy this creature in flames.   
 
Her first love letter to me was now in cinders, an innocent teddy bear condemned to burn. I was tossing away her dreary Cds when I realised how invigorating it felt to exorcise these demons. And as the flames died down, I turned around to my house and thought: “why stop there?”  My home, my castle… and all I could see were more demons. Crushed hopes, failed relationships, fights, disappointment, opportunities missed and gone. A tragic symbol of a life wasted.
 
It’s hard for me to really remember exactly what happened but when I weighed up my life and my achievements to date; I think I started to cry.  But I was quick to wipe away those tears and vividly I remember myself smiling and sniggering again.
 
On the coffee table were the photo albums I had already ravaged for images of her. I examined the pictures of loved ones I no longer had love for. The friends I no longer cared for. The past I so detested. I threw them in the fire too.
 
Excitedly I went back out to the car. I can’t really re-enact it too vividly as I’m not supposed to get too excitable, but with the help of a thin tube, I sucked out the petrol from my tank. I began a trail: from my car in through my front door, into what I laughably called my dining room, upstairs into the bathroom, main bedroom, over the bed and into the second bedroom - my half hearted gym, then back down into the kitchen into the living room out into the conservatory and toward the dying flames in the garden.
 
Thank goodness I had enough petrol eh!

I connected the trail. The fire raced into the house re-tracing my steps. I watched it race through into the living room and then I looked to the upstairs windows. I saw my bedroom light up and the bathroom curtain catch ablaze.

I was ecstatic; I jumped up and down, screamed and shouted. I tore off my shirt, spilling buttons onto the lawn. Then I leapt from my trousers and kicked them both onto the fire. As I destroyed my boxers and socks in the flames I saw that my wallet had fallen onto the lawn. I picked it up and looked through it, casually casting aside my memberships and store club cards. I emptied out my change and incinerated at least fifty pounds. 
 
Left then were two small cards. There was my Debit card, the piece of plastic on which my life depended. And my driver’s license; My legal identification. The essential proof that I was me. Even in my little photo I looked like I was having a bad day. 
 
I said a loud “So long” to myself and my life support let them burn on the fire and took a moment to watch my life disintegrate. 
 
There was some commotion now from around the front of the house. I went through the back gate into my front garden to see my car burning up nicely. Some of the neighbours were staring at the house and on their mobiles, calling 999. Suddenly all eyes were focused in on me
 
“Good evening,” I waved to them cheerfully. And with that I walked off into the sunset. Naked and free.

That’s how I remember it now anyway. It’s all started to come back to me, but they say I’m greatly improved and will be better very soon.
 
Could you pass me my pills please?