It was a pleasure to BURN. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see thINGs blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some aMAzing conductor playing all the symphoNies of blazing and 5 burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his solid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and BLACK. He stROde in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stiCK in the 10 furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.
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If you had one match and entered a room in which there were a kerosene lamp, an oil burner, and a wood burning stove, which would you light first?
He was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as the true state of affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back.”
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