Knowing the Psychopath : Burn. Burn Just For Me….
Fire. The power of the conflagration as it consumes everything before it. Dominant. Unwavering. Merciless. The roar of the air as it is sucked into that vortex as the flames billow, the twisting colours that perform that mesmerising dance. Oh such glorious power embodied in the flames of yellow, amber, gold, orange, rust, copper and tangerine. The crackling, the popping, the groaning of the wood as it succumbs to that irresistible force. The hissing of a liquid, perhaps sap in a branch or the bubbling of melting plastic. Nothing halts the advance of this mighty wall of flame. A blaze of indomitable might that devours everything that it touches. The wood blackens and ignites, the dancing flames engulfing it, surrounding it. Rubber slowly melts, the blackened, acrid smoke spilling from it, paint peels and blisters before bubbling into the ether. Paper, so pathetic, it ignites without the touch of the flame, such is the heat that surrounds it as it folds and the flames burst upon it like a flower blossoming. Such a powerful force, such a destructive inferno that consumes and leaves only ash, blackened metal and the stench of consumption behind. Fire does not discriminate, it conquers and subdues. Nothing stands in its way. Fabric, wood, plastic, glass, vegetation – whatever it might be, it will be consumed by the marching troopers of flame, the army which becomes stronger and stronger as it advances. The more it consumes, the more it destroys and the more powerful it becomes. Fuel the fire, give it the fuel, keep it fuelled, watch it want more and more fuel and as it receive that fuel, see how it becomes even more dangerous, how it moves at such a pace to outstrip a running human, watch it demolish, devour and destroy. Fire.
Fire has always been a fascination for me. I find a beauty in its form and power. I would always volunteer to light the candles at dinner, striking the match and smelling that sulphurous scent as the match sparked and took light. I would watch the flame for a moment, observing this new form of life as it spluttered and guttered into existence. The flickering flame would eventually steady, like a foal finding its feet and then with the flame established I would introduce it to each wick of the four candles that always were presented for lighting. Those candles were never used twice. Dependent on how long dinner lasted, what remained of the candles would be thrown away and new ones placed upon the table. I always sought to light all four from one match, carefully moving the flaming match from one to the second, to the next and to the last. The gentle embrace of the yellow flame transferring from match to wick and then a new flame, a new offspring appearing. One, two, three and four.
Once complete and with still burning match I would turn and look for something else to ignite. How about father´s newspaper? How about the table cloth? How about my sister´s hair? The thoughts would come fast as I waited with my flaming wand, revelling in the prospect of bringing mayhem and response through the application of flame. Such immediate plans were thwarted as another member of the family would enter and distracted the flame would burn to my fingers causing me to mutter and then extinguish the match. The box of matches would be taken from me, although of course I had already secreted three or four in my pocket for use elsewhere. I knew that the match could be struck on the zip of my trousers and once again I would hold the power of fire in my hand.
What should I burn? Anything? Everything? I would take my brother´s comic and lift the lit match to the corner as I held it over the bath. I would watch as the flames began to grow as I held it as long as I could, seeing the oranges and yellows rise and devour the faces, the characters and the words in the speech bubbles. Look at how complete the fire is. See how it eradicates the artistry, obliterates the words, erases the very existence of everything in this comic book. Wipes them from the face of the earth. I would allow the blackened and still burning comic to fall into the bath and stare until it was entirely black.
“HG! What is that smell?” called a voice (sometimes) from the other side of the door.
“I think a neighbour is burning rubbish on a bonfire,” I would answer easily without hesitation or delay as I turned and opened the window to release the smoke.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you think I am doing in the bathroom, go away!” I would order.
There would be a pause and then the voice would instruct.
“Hurry up.”
I would ignore the injunction and instead turn on the tap to turn the brittle blackened paper into fragmented, sodden blobs which would wash away down the plughole. I would find a bottle or canister and spray it to mask the scent of smoke before sitting on the toilet and hold the remaining matches in my hand as I contemplated what would be done with them. Where would I lead my fire to next?
Thus my sister would find occasional dolls kidnapped and consigned to a funeral pyre made in the garden. I would stack the twigs and small branches, the newspaper twisted between them, before placing Cindy or Barbie on top and then with a solemnity not amiss at a religious ceremony, I would strike the match and recite the doll´s sins which necessitated her purification through fire. Trees would be scorched in the garden as I sought to turn their bark ablaze. Photographs would be plucked from albums and then placed carefully on an already burning fire to watch the flames delete the people contained therein. My abusers found their images particularly sought after and removed from albums not just at my home, but at mu uncle’s home also. Let them burn what they have done and what they do. Burn.
I found the clinical precision of flame matched me. Incessant, unforgiving, relentless. It dispensed oblivion without concern, hesitation of demurring. Just in the way that I did.
So much I found to burn, so many scenarios and materials that came to perish by my obsession with the application of flame as I experimented and learned and with everything about me, I required larger, more satisfying and more memorable outcomes.
During part of my childhood, my friends and I would devise games in the darkness cloaked garden during Autumn and Winter. We would fashion swords, shields, armours, mace, flails and much more as we created adventure upon adventure. Invariably, we would set a fire behind one of the outbuildings in the expansive gardens. This fire would serve as a campfire which we would gather around, our young faces illuminated by the flames as we discussed which orc encampment we would raid or whether the red dragon would fly down from its lair and seek us out after we had stolen part of its treasure hoard. One of my friends was called David and there came an occasion where my father, David´s father, David and me were all sat in my father´s car as he drove us to some place on a Saturday afternoon.
“Dad, may I play at HG´s house tonight?” asked David.
His father, a dour man who thought himself far brighter than he was ( a plodding bean counter at some government institution) twisted in the passenger seat and addressed his son.
“Yes, you may,” he then turned his gaze on me “but don’t come back stinking of that bloody smoke. It is every time you play with him.” he added.
Him? Him? Him!
I felt my own flames burst into life within me. Who did he think he was referring to me as him.
I looked towards the rear view mirror and my father´s eyes rested on me as he tilted his head, entreating me to offer confirmation. Weak as always father.
“Oh, no, David will not smell of smoke, there won’t be a fire at my house tonight,” I replied. I returned David´s father´s gaze. He did not scare me.
He looked at me for a moment and then nodded in satisfaction before turning back to face forward and engaging my father in some no doubt tedious observation about double entry book keeping or such like.
In keeping with my word, when David and my other friends joined me at my house, along with my brother, we did not build a fire. I explained that this would invariably attract those (in the game) who were hunting us and thus the garden remained cloaked in relative darkness. My friends were engaged in the collection of various ingredients from the garden to add to our collection of potions which were concocted and stored in an old stone outhouse. Whilst they attended to the gathering of mushrooms, fallen fruit, strips of bark, leaves and herbs from the herb garden, I slipped away from the group and shrouded in the near darkness made my way to a section of the garden where various logs were stored under cover against a shed. My prize lay three rows across and four columns up. My hand slipped inside and touched upon the top of the bottle secreted there. I pulled it free. It was an empty lemonade bottle which would ordinarily be returned to the store for a small payment, but this time it had a much more important repayment to make.
I slipped the bottle inside my coat and scurried along the old wall of the garden right to the end. I clambered neatly over the fence at the end and landed in the bushes behind it which meant I was now in another garden, which belonged to a neighbour. I knew precisely where I was going (I had done this many times before as a convenient short cut) as I made my way through the bushes, stepping through a fence, along the back of another garden, slipping over a low wall, along another garden and then over another stone wall to find myself in the garden that belonged to David´s family.
I crouched down feeling that familiar sensation of power starting to rise within me.
“Him?” I hissed quietly.
I saw ahead the garden shed at the rear of the garden and advanced towards it. I crouched down low and looked upwards. The lawn was long, narrower than that at my house and rose to the house where I could see the outline of light around the curtains framing various windows. The moon offered a little light and I waited as I ensured nobody happened to be gazing from a window into the ink black garden. Satisfied I was unseen, I reached inside my coat and pulled from the pocket the lemonade bottle. I twisted off the cap and placed it in another pocket. The heady smell of petrol wafted upwards. Ah, such a delightful scent. Smells like power. I had stolen the petrol earlier that day from the jerry can kept in the garage. Some had slopped onto the stone floor of the garage and I had been tempted to light it and watch the flames do their dance until the petrol burned out but I resisted. I knew there would be a far superior display to enjoy.
I poured the petrol along the wood of the shed, letting the potent liquid coat the lower section as on my haunches I moved backwards and continued to pour ensuring that I soaked a patch of earth and autumnal leaves at the north-western edge of the shed, until the bottle was empty. I then replaced the cap and secured the now empty bottle back into my inside coat pocket. I reached to a different pocket and unzipped it, removing the box of matches as I moved back further, retreating into the bushes at the end of the garden.
“Him?” I repeated.
I took a match and struck it against the box. It flared up and I cupped the flame with my hand allowing it to become established. I looked up and then said “Burn. Burn just for me.” I threw the match a small distance so it landed on the soaked patch and the flames immediately caught. There was the satisfying noise of “wumph” as the flames erupted and then that marvellous moment as the flames streamed along the petrol embraced edge of the shed. The blue and yellow flames soared as the petrol burned and then the colours shifted to orange and yellow as the wood of the shed came under assault from the growing fire. I watched and backed away. I stared at the increasing fire, the first sounds of cracking emanating as the dry wood starting to succumb to its assailant. I continued to back away until I felt the stone wall against my back and there, tucked away in the bushes, I stared through them at the gathering inferno. The flames rose higher, long tongues of orange reaching upwards, the wood groaning and popping, cracking and crackling as the flames continued to grow. Up they climbed and I watched. I saw as they began to lick underneath the glass window, I watched as they coiled about the other sides of the shed, I watched as they made their way up to the roof, an orange ivy climbing and engulfing. There was the first sharp crack as a window pane shattered the glass broken but still remaining in the pane for a moment before it shattered again and slipped from its pane onto the floor. Now the flames could, like some burglar, encroach within, the long limbs of orange flame stealing within to seek out whatever lay within. Garden tools, fertiliser, chemicals, toys, paint, bicycles – whatever it might be was now being consumed.
“Jesus! Call the fire brigade!” cried a voice from the house. I could see someone stood at the top of the stone steps which led down into the garden. They were frozen, unsure as to whether to advance or to perhaps run and grab the garden hose to start some rudimentary fire fighting. I felt another surge within me as I heard this reaction to my fire-starting.
I waited another moment, savouring the scene of the conflagration as the shed was almost now entirely engulfed. It was old, dry wood which stood no chance under the accelerant assisted inferno. Such satisfaction at seeing those flames and knowing that the smell of smoke was indeed not coming from my garden, just as I promised and instead I had brought the smell of smoke here instead along with my good and able friend fire.
It was time to go and I clambered over the stone wall, slipping into the neighbours and quickly running back to my own house.
I had made it burn. I had showed him.
This was just a start.
Burn. Burn just for me……
15 thoughts on “Knowing the Psychopath : Burn. Burn Just For Me….”
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Standing about three feet tall, I froze in fascination looking out the sliding glass kitchen doors, out over our wire fenced backyard and to my jungle beyond. Something was wrong. But I didn’t know what.
My swing set rested on the grass to the right. To the left sat the blue clapboard shed on concrete blocks, my cobweb strewn hiding blocks with just enough space to lie my belly on cool earth and watch. Now I watched out the tall window instead. Something different was wrong. But I didn’t know what.
Dad stood on the roof, watering it like the lawn. Mom was packing up the baby. Two strange men were roaming my house. Baby ready to go, mom frantically searched the house for my other brother, fearing he was playing outside. A policeman slid him out from under his bed.
Beyond the wire was my jungle, sloping for miles up the hill around the valley of our house. The wild grass was at least a foot taller than me. The coyotes and bobcats and rattle snakes lived there. Rabbits and pheasants as well. Curious prairie dogs popped up when it wasn’t too hot for me to explore.
The entire ridge of the hill lit up like the edge of burning paper. A stunning orange red glow traced the entire line of the hill, separating it from the horizon. I’d never seen my jungle do that before! The wind gently shifted and the glow surfed down the hill in an instant wave, stopping at our fence.
That was the day that I learned fire moves like water.
Alternate subtitle: The origin of/inspiration for HG Tudor’s website & video “logo”!
I too was fascinated by fire as a teen, although I never thought of using it to destroy things. I just liked going out in the woods behind our house where the remains of a crumbled old cement wall made a great surface for setting small objects aflame without the risk of spreading any fire. I did it purely out of curiosity to observe how different materials–like a styrofoam cup–burned. (My youngest contribution to global warming?) In fact, I never smoked, but for the longest time, I used to carry a “disposable”/non-reusable” lighter around in my purse. I don’t have such a fascination with fire anymore though, so, now that your story reminded me of it, I’m wondering WHY I continued keeping one in my purse! In case I found some new material I wanted to burn but had no place to do it safely? Although I suppose any area of pavement would do–if it was secluded, so that’s not very practice. To offer someone a light for a cigarette? No way! I’m allergic to cigarette smoke! I’m pretty sure I stopped carrying one around before I got into scented candles. Could *I* be a psychopath? I’m autistic but don’t have Anti-Social Personality Disorder, if that’s how you define psychopathy.
Questions:
(1) Maybe this will be answered in your upcoming work on psychopathy/sociopathy that @Anna mentioned that I didn’t know was forthcoming, but …
(a) Will you be defining the words “psychopath” & “sociopath” & explaining the difference? Or is “psychopath” just a synonym for Anti-Social Personality Disorder?
(b) I realize that getting revenge on someone by burning down his shed is a “bad” thing to do, but how is it illustrative of your psychopathy. Maybe it’s just me having been slow to mature, but how is this significantly different from other kids doing destructive things before their brains have matured that they later grow out of?
I nearly drowned my sister once in the pool as a teenager at my cousin’s house because I HATED swimming/going in the pool, getting water stuck in my ears for a week & giving me “tinnitus” until it finally drained back out or up my nose (plus, while that pool was only 4 feet deep & too small for six kids to swim around in it, I REALLY hated the pool at school, which had a deep end and sloped down pretty quickly, & due to a medical condition causing me to have NO upper-body strength, the only “swimming” I could do was to tread water or do the backstroke once I figured out how to float without panicking. Whereas my younger sister, the “Golden Child,” absolutely LOVING to swim at every opportunity, and KNEW my aversion to being IN the water. So, with no adults supervising us until someone got my aunt to come out of the house, she thought it was funny to start scooping miniature tidal waves with her hands directly into my face & up my nose. And incited my cousins to join in with her while I kept pleading for them to STOP. Of course, my sister thought it was HILARIOUS getting me upset, so they continued doing it with her as the ringleader directly facing me. I’m normally a gentle person & hate even fictional violence, but if someone is hurting me REPEATEDLY, ON PURPOSE, I just suddenly explode out of nowhere, & that’s what happened (since we had NEVER gotten along, partly because she was always bossing me around as if SHE were the older sibling, standing in as a parent when they weren’t around telling me, “Mommy & Daddy wouldn’t like that,” & taking great pleasure in tattling on me when they got home for whatever silly thing I was doing that she’d decided I wasn’t allowed to do).
So, before I knew it, my adrenaline must’ve kicked in, and even though she was bigger & stronger than me, I’d pushed her under the water since she loved it so much & could apparently hold her breath for a long time and was STANDING on her head by the time everyone else was out of the pool & my aunt came out of the house & started yelling at me (since she apparently didn’t go in the pool or maybe just didn’t want to get her hair wet) to, “STOP, you’re going to KILL her!” Which didn’t even cross my mind until she said it, so I got off my sister’s head & somebody helped her up, Needless to say, she never splashed me in the face again, but I had completely FORGOTTEN about that incident until maybe 15 years ago when we were at her house & my mother tearfully mentioned that along with all the other times my sister (who suddenly stopped communicating with me back in 2016 with no explanation & we’re estranged to this day) nearly died from scarlet fever, meningitis, & something else she was hospitalized with. For my part, I had completely forgotten about that incident, but when she reminded me–because apparently, when you’re a parent, you don’t forget all the times you almost lost a child. I personally felt wrongly accused because everyone used to say she was like a fish, & I was reacting defensively seriously having no intention of killing her but simply to get her to STOP BULLYING ME once & for all–at least by splashing water in her face. And also maybe to get adults to stop forcing me to go in the pool, especially with HER! I had no INTENT to hurt her but only to STOP her from getting away with all the crap she used to do to me when no adults were around to witness it & be treated as if she were pergfect in every way while EVERYTHING I did was always WRONG, I was labelled as a problem child/bad seed & always being compared to her, in the words I’ll always remember: “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” I felt like nobody knew she wasn’t a perfect angel except for me.
Anyway, when that story “resurfaced” at least 30 years later & I thought back on it, I actually felt TERRIBLE at the thought that I might ACTUALLY have killed her if my aunt hadn’t come out soon enough, told my sister I was sorry, & started to cry myself.
So I guess my question is, did I turn temporarily psychotic or something when I did that? (I have another story where the short version is I finally snapped at a bully in high school home ec class who kept punching me in the leg under the table while the teacher was talking & kept telling her to stop … until I snapped, &, being hypermobile (the reason for my upper-body weakness) suddenly swung around & kicked her in the chest, knocking her off her chair & then, again, *I* was the only one who was punished! What is it that happened to me on those occasions when I suddenly turned unbelievably violent? Was I dissociating? Or AM I some kind of psychopath? It’s not like I’ve done that often; in fact, there’s only one other time like that I can remember, from primary school, when I unintentionally gave a bully a black eye. And then my mother marched me over to her house to make ME apologize to HER. For some reason, I’m not just a narc magnet, but a BULLY magnet, & I’ll take it and take it and take it & just keep begging the person to stop … until I just suddenly turn into a different person and OVER-do the self-defense!
(2) Sorry to be hard of understanding, but what upset you so much about David’s father referring to you as “him”? Do you object to the use of pronouns as opposed to having your name said repeatedly, or was it the tone of his voice, or was he repeatedly AVOIDING your name, or was it something else?
Speaking of pronouns … I don’t mean to be offensive, just honest, although I’m sure somebodies will be offended, so I/we/us apologize in advance, but specifically addressing HG: Now that people are suddenly declaring their personal pronouns/honoring others’ & so many are using “they”/”them,” which not only seems pretentious to me (like a monarch referring to theirselves as “we”/”us”!), but makes NO grammatical sense. It DOES make for a LOT of incomprehensible sentences & paragraphs where I can’t keep track of WHICH “they”/”them” “they’re” talking about, for example, a NY Times article about two “they”/”them” entities where I literally could NOT understand who the victim versus perpetrator was because it was an individual versus some organization, the latter of which seems to me like the right occasion to use the plural pronoun, but when the journalist is “honoring” someone’s preferred pronouns even though that person is OBVIOUSLY of a specific gender AND only ONE PERSON, I guess I’m just too old to be woke.
So, I doubt this would happen with you, HG, since you’re “anti-woke, (” I THINK?) but I wonder how much MORE it would’ve bothered you if everyone got to choose his or her own pronouns back then & you wanted to be spoken of in the plural! I’ve always been on the Liberal side of politics, but when people start messing with the grammar I got drilled into my head in school & expressly told NEVER refer to a single individual as “they” or “them,” I’ve reached the limit of my ability to be “woke.” Uh-oh, I hope I don’t accidentally kick the next person(s?) who declare(s?) those to be “their” pronouns in the chest & knock they/them on the floor or accidentally drown they/them or give they/them several black eyes! Why am I hearing the Rolling Stones’ “We Love You” in my head, the part of the lyrics that go, “Weeee love they, & we want you to love they too …” I STILL have to find & watch your “Wokeism” video(s)! Or are The Ultra’s pronouns “I/me/mine mine MINE”?😉 OK, back to my coma😴 so I’m wide awoke & punctual for youse at 7 a.m. y’all’s time tomorrow!😀
Mr. Tudor,
Since this article is part of the Knowing the Psychopath series, I’m going to assume your admiration of fire comes from the psychopathy and helps to alleviate the boredom. My question is what about the threat to control? Fire can be an uncontrollable force. Is the alleviation of the boredom more important (for lack of a better word) than the unwavering need for control? Is it that since you’re the one who unleashed this uncontrollable force, you’ve asserted control?
It is a threat to others, not me, hence there is no threat to control and as you identified, I unleashed it.
Mr. Tudor,
It is a threat to others, not you. I hadn’t thought of it that way. Thank you.
Oh my dear HG
Fire has no master.
You cannot control it. It controls you.
When will you release your work on psychopathy/Sociopathy? we Tudorites are awaiting it. Salivating in fact….
I still feel sorry for all the little insects and rodents, that burned down.
—
I once had a fit of rage at work, when my narcissistic boss PURPOSEFULLY, stepped in front of me, stepped on a ladybug on the sidewalk.
Since then, most employees call me when a fly, wasp or hornet gets into their office, because they are afraid to kill, lest I find out about it 🙂
Sometimes I think I’m a despot… 🙂
Hello, Mr. Tudor,
1. Do you have a favorite memory (one that gives good thought fuel when recalled) of burning something?
2. What was it?
3. Who owned it?
4. What was your motivation?
5. Which did you enjoy more? Watching this object burn or watching the reaction of the object’s owner upon discovering that it was missing?
Thank you so much for your time! I really appreciate it.
Dani
1. No.
2. N/A.
3 N/a
4. N/a
5. Watching it burn.
@ number 5, why does that not surprise me, HG 🙂
Thank you, Sir!
Why do you think it is that you don’t have a favorite memory?
Is one absent in this case, but in regards to other things you have favorite memories?
Is it the word ‘favorite’ that is objectionable?
Would ‘most prominent’ be a better identifier?
Memories are a hindrance.
Shiiit, you can say that again Buster
I love this story, giving so much insight 🙂 Thank you for reposting it, HG X