Matchstick Figures

By M.R. Tapia

The Matchstick Murderer has struck again! But his latest victim survived and is in the burn unit, their death a flicker away. A freelance reporter, hot on the trail since the first victim, intentionally lands himself in the hospital's burn unit in order to score an interview with the survivor, proving extreme stories require extreme measures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.R. Tapia
• Release date: May 1, 2018

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This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not construed to be real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text Copyright © 2018 M.R. Tapia

Hindered Souls Press 2018

Hinderedsoulspress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of Hindered Souls Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

‘Matchstick Figures’ was published in its original form at Schlock! Webzine

Matchstick Figures

By M. R. Tapia

It was a pleasure to burn.

-Ray Bradbury

Layers of skin melt upon the asphalt, peeling away as I worm toward the emergency room’s sliding double doors. The melted wax fragments of skin which remain like filthy papier-mâché at this point. My face can be easily confused with the muse for Edvard Munch’s Scream painting. My mouth, melted to the size of a nostril. Only my right eye survives, barely.

Squirming across the red handicap ramp, its grip blisters tear at my own, exposing the tendons along my hands and forearms. Deep within the fire’s aftermath, my focus remains clear: the Burn Unit.

My forearms like melted cathedral candles. Calves and quads and hamstrings and glutes, all of their muscles free to feel the cool night breeze against their seared muscle strands. A six pack of abs glistening, the fat sizzling away as breakfast bacon.

It’s the smell of burning hair that I can’t rid myself of. That, and the burning beneath my soul,