Campfire Pleasures.

     You ever hold your hand over a candle?  Do you spread your fingers out, or try to cup the heat in?  Sometimes you extend your arms out two feet above the flame, slowly lowering til you can’t take it. Psychopaths reach right for the wick, going straight in. 
     Do you count the seconds until you can’t take it any longer?  Do you hold your breath while you do it?  Do you go back and forth, moving your hand in and out, over and over from the cool air to the heat, cool to heat?  
     Is it plain, or is the candle Grapefruit Sea Salt?
     First Snowfall.  
     Rose Petals. 
     Fresh Laundry. 
     $5.99 to test your resistance.  You bought oat milk, a plastic tray of strawberries, and a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. Also one Angel Whispers scented candle to sear the flesh of your palm after breakfast. 
     Do you replace the lid of the candle when you’re through, or do you give it a hard blow and walk away, content the flame is extinguished?  Certain no smoke from the Lavender Field candle will be enough to set off the smoke alarm. 
     The reason behind blowing out candles on a birthday cake was originally so the wish would be carried by the smoke up to the gods. Now we hold our hand above a candle to become God. For a fraction of a send at least. 
     The temperature just above a flame can reach 600 degrees because heat rises. Enough to melt skin. Enough to grant you your very own stigmata. 
     And what about . . . 
     “You speak of Gods to me?” a low voice interrupts.  
     Sitting across the table from me a black hood circles a gray and cracked skull. At least I make out the jaw, the rest is hidden in darkness. Out of its sleeve a hand hovers over a cup of coffee, a boned finger loops through the mug handle. 
     “Are you a god?” I ask it. 
     They don’t answer. I look around my kitchen. The microwave flashes 00:00 in red lights. Was it like that before this thing showed up? 
     “That depends on your definition on of a god,” it tells me. 
     I stand up from the kitchen table, side step and push my chair in. Walking over to the microwave I start pressing buttons. I can never remember how to program the clock. 
     “Are you going to kill me?” I turn and ask. 
     “No,” the hooded figure replies. “You will die, but I’ll just be in the room when it happens.” 
     “That sounds an awful lot like you’re going to kill me.”
     “There’s a difference,” the figure states. 
     “If you’re like . . . the grim reaper, then how does that work exactly?” I ask. “Aren’t there over one hundred thousand people in the world that die every day?  How do you get to everyone?”
     The figure lifts the mug, but doesn’t drink. 
     “I stop time,” it says. 
     I turn back to the microwave. “Did you do that? Time is stopped right now?”  I rush to the window and peer out. The wind blows the branches and leaves of a tree, a car pulls into a driveway across the street. 
     “No, you just have a shitty microwave,” it says.  It sets the mug back down. 
     I rush back to the appliance. I press the power button, then hold the clock button with another stretched out finger. It beeps so I press 11, 3, and 4. 
     Nothing happens. 
     I press power again causing the microwave to start. The interior light comes on, and the plate starts spinning. I fling open the door and leave it. 
     “So how am I going to die then?” I ask. “Do you poke me with your sickle and that’s it? Lights out?”  
     The reaper lifts a pointy boned finger towards the back door. Slowly smoke begins creeping in between the door and frame.  The wood creaks and a flame bursts through the center of the door.  I cover my mouth with my sleeve, trying not to inhale the dirty smell of smoke. 
     “Wait,” I say backing up to the opposite wall. The smoke recedes, leaving the door with a jagged and burnt hole running down it.  I smell the smoke lingering throughout the air. I feel goosebumps on my arms and begin rubbing my hands over them. “Rather drown than burn to death,” I mutter. 
     Suddenly I feel something wet running along my foot, an icy feeling on my sock.  I look down at the growing puddle, the water dripping from the kitchen sink. 
     “I take it back! I take it back!” I repeat.  “Where’s your sickle?  Fucking shoot me in the head or something, just get this over with.”
     The reaper stands, the chair scraping across the floor. It walks over to the microwave and places it’s coffee mug inside. I watch as it carefully closes the door, and presses start. The mug spins inside, round and round. I stand still and wait. After a minute the machine beeps. The reaper opens the door and pulls out the mug. It walks back and takes its place at the table again. The figure sets the mug back down without taking a sip. 
     “I don’t carry a sickle. Sickles are small-handled blades. You’re thinking of a scythe, which I don’t have either.  I have no use for such a cumbersome instrument.  Carrying that around would amount to little more than a scare tactic.”  
     “You should carry two sickles,” I tell it, stalling.  I swing my arms around, slicing two imaginary sickles through the air. “Time to die, gran-paw . . . shling.  Times up, bro . . . eat a sickle.”  
     I cross my arms as if committing one final slash, landing the death blow. I hold the pose of my fists crossed. I look at the hooded figure. 
     “I will burn this damn place to the ground with you in it. I swear to God,” the reaper says. I think I hear it exhale. 
     “Right,” I say, straightening up. The figure points across the table to my chair. I walk up and cautiously take my seat. 
     “Ask me anything. You have little time left,” it warns. 
          I think of asking if the reaper knows God. He swore to God, is that proof that God exists?  
     Or maybe . . . does it know Satan?  Are they friends?  Coworkers?  
     I try to think.  I think of asking whatever happened to my girlfriend from junior year of high school.  We dated for just under three months, and she once told me that the tiny scar on her cheek was from when her mother’s latest boyfriend picked her up and threw her against a wall.  We didn’t last, but she fucked me up for years after that. 
     I look at the figure, craning my head to try to get a better look into the hood.  It bows it’s head lower. 
     “Ok.”  I try to think of an intelligent, maybe even . . . philosophical question.  “Is there . . . racism in the afterlife?” I ask. 
    “What do you mean?” it asks back. 
     “Is there racism in heaven?” I ask. 
     “I don’t know. I’ve never been.” 
     “But,” I reply, “is the afterlife just as shitty as real life?” 
     “That depends on your definition of . . .”
     “Yeah, yeah, depends on my definition,” I cut him off. 
     “Wait,” it dawns on me.  “I’m not . . . going to heaven, am I?”
     The reaper lifts the coffee mug, but again doesn’t drink. It sets the mug back down. The long sleeved arm then reaches to its face, and lifts the hood with one finger. It slides up and back over the dirty boned face. I stare into the dark craters of the eye holes.  The back of my neck suddenly begins to feel warm.  I feel the heat on my ear lobes, and then the back of my head. Sweat drips down my forehead right into my eyes, but my arms are suctioned to my lap.  The smell of smoke surrounds me seconds before I see the black puffs flow around the kitchen table. 
     I try to turn, but the skin on my neck feels as if it will rip if I bend any further.  I side eye to the microwave, just a red blur of flashing lights.  I scan to the sink, beads of water suction to the counter from where it was recently overflowing.  A candle sits on the countertop, the label peeling at one side.  The picture on it shows a marshmallow on a stick hovering above a flame.  In arched letters along the top the label reads CAMPFIRE PLEASURES. 
     I spin my eyes back, but see only an empty kitchen chair straight across from me.  I hold my breath.