“There is no denying it, our past stinks and seeps into our present. Occasionally I get such a potent whiff of history that my mind spins and my stomach lurches.”

“Anger ignites fires or do fires ignite anger? Did the dispossessed, their rage burning within them for years, finally strike a match to enlighten an oblivious region of their dissatisfaction? Or were the fires the primary cause of the dissatisfaction, inciting through its searing heat, the fury which is colouring the country a bright crimson, as its people imitating the violence of the flames spill the blood of thousands?”

“But what is the point of buying vegetables in plastic bags? Everything from the supermarket smells of plastic. Everything from the market smells like it’s supposed to.”

“They want me to contain the raging fires within me. They need me to appreciate glowing embers, to understand that even weak flames need to be managed with a lot of careful planning.”

“I think there’s something wrong with my lungs. Maybe I have an allergy or hay fever. I think it might even be a fracture they forgot to fix. I worry about it a lot. I can picture the broken rib impaling my lungs, my heart.”

“Pride. The worst kind of fire. It starts somewhere below the gut, creeps through the liver, climbs quietly up the heart, and moves into the lungs. You never notice it until it’s too late. It’s uncontrollable by the time it gets to the head. There it rages, blowing hot air through the ears. It’s a spiteful hissing above the echoing vacuum between the ears. All thoughts get evicted or burnt. When the fire ceases, only black ashes remain. Imagine. Ashes in your head.”

“Somewhere beneath the surface of this body, a fire, maybe even several fires, are burning. The flames within me are licking away the moisture, feeding on my blood so that my body resembles a land struck by drought. I no longer possess that fine solid sheet which used to conceal my veins and other inner parts as efficiently as anyone else’s skin.”

“Scar tissue — it’s a new layer of tender skin, lightly covering the wound. Still a vulnerable spot, the slightest little knock might tear the skin so it bleeds and the remembered ache from the old wound intensifies the pain from the latest blow.”

“My body shakes with a million different fires. Feet that look like yours warp and the corns split so you see craters of infinite variety, some pus-filled Lake Toba. The weakness in my limbs, the thick weight on my head and chest and the slow burning inside me that never reaches the skin, bring me closer to you. My afflictions bring me closer to you.”

“Difficulties were fires. If you kept them in check, you could learn from them. You simply had to know how to fan them the right way.”

“Can you lose your inborn talents? Can the gifts you come into this world with be taken away without your even noticing? Maybe it’s my fault for wanting always to stem the fires within me? Perhaps there are some fires that should be allowed to rage on?”