Untouched

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His skin was wreathed in flames, burning red and yellow, as he streaked across the early morning sky. Aleksandr Timofeyevich Gavrikov was not yet eighteen. I can’t believe I killed her , he thought. I have done murder.

The air felt cold in spite of the fact that his skin was covered by a solid inch of fire. How is that possible? he wondered. The wind that whipped across his face did not affect the flames. This is unlike anything I have ever seen…unlike anything Father has ever seen too, I think… The smell of rank, stale water rose up from below him in the swamps. A river cut the land, the shine of the rising sun refracting off it. He was several hundred feet up, flying— as though I were a bird , he thought. Without flapping my arms, I can fly! Just like Father.

He felt a thrum in his heart at that thought. He will hurt me for this; worse than he ever has before. Perhaps things would have been different if mother had lived, he thought for the thousandth time, then dismissed it. I am on fire and flying through the air and I have done murder. Had mother lived long enough to see this, the shock would have killed her.

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