Burning Woman | Fiona McKay
The softness of the night is a featherlight mantle to wrap around her. She’s shielded, protected, as much from her inward gaze as from any other. She glides around, unnoticed by herself, unhampered.
The air is cool compared to daytime’s swelter. It’s quieter too, with some people sleeping, though many are still awake: drinking, talking, fucking.
She floats, feet touching the ground lightly like a lover. The landscape sings to her; the long plaintive notes of wind over sand, overlaid with the crackle of flames, and the low hum of life. She goes from group to group, taking what she wants and what she needs: drugs, sex, lives. Everyone is free and open, offering themselves up in the moonlight. It’s a party, a feast, a bacchanal.
Later, sated, enough of the willing flesh, she lies back on the sand and rests, watching distant figures outlined against the orange fire. They could be dancing, or burning in the flames of hell; from this distance, it’s hard to tell. Her body glows with a voluptuous sense of fitting perfectly inside her skin. She’s hypnotised by the bright blaze, and her sharp perception of the world mellows, blurring at the edges.
The crash of a breaking bottle jolts her awake - her brain still coasting along in dreamy darkness, but her body immediately alert. The whisper of night is gone, and she is pinned by light and noise. There are crowds of people moving in all directions: queuing for food trucks, ranging themselves to listen to obscure bands, lining up for bathrooms. Faces are bright, clothes fresh, makeup in place. Rubbing her hands deeply over her eyes, they come away smudged with black mascara. She thinks she must look a mess, though she never carries a mirror, so it’s just a guess.
It’s so late in the day, so late, for someone planning to steal away before sunrise. The heat is beginning to build, the cool desert night burnt away apart from her memories, burnt into her despite her wish to forget. She feels that she’s becoming shimmeringly nebulous at the extremities. It’s too late to move, but she tries; rearranging difficult limbs to stand, and the cartwheel hat, the one she always wears, slips sideways to the sand. As she fumbles for it awkwardly, a group of people nearby move from between her and the sun. The light strikes like an assault, pierces her, and it’s enough to start the process of her evanescence. Soon, there’s nothing to indicate that she was there at all. In normal circumstances, this would cause alarm, but here, it goes unnoticed, a trick of the light.
Locked into herself until night comes again, when needs become wants, and she will be free to roam again – telling herself she won’t, but knowing she will do it all over again.
Fiona McKay used to be a lawyer but now lives beside the sea in Dublin, Ireland with her husband and daughter, and makes things up. Some of those things can be read at Janus Literary, Scrawl Place, Lumiere Review and other lovely places. Saved from a life of not writing by Writers’HQ. Spends a lot of time on Twitter @fionamckayryan chatting with other writers, which counts as writing.