The Burning Father

   My father was burning to death when he pulled me aside to communicate his suspicion of the presence of an arsonist in the house. My father held very dearly to a concept of justice. If he was on fire someone must be responsible. If someone was responsible this someone must be apprehended and held accountable.  
     I was on my third cup of coffee. I glanced up from the novel I was reading and agreed, someone must be held accountable. It was merely a reflex, to agree with my father, who after all was burning to death, but the moment I spoke I knew that I truly did agree with him. That surprised me. My father and I rarely saw eye-to-eye. There was a heavy gravity to this novel situation, and I felt it required some fair amount of introspection on my part. I rose and strolled into the library. 
     Standing at the library window, I reflected on the situation. However, very soon something caught my eye. From our estate, one has the vantage point of peering down into Bulle-Triste Valley, where the Killstone Railway tracks run.  At Hurtling Station I noticed a busy scene. The animal handlers from the Mudburn Circus, which had been meandering its way through the villages in the area, had been in the process of loading Jumbo, a 13,000-pound elephant, into his boxcar. The massive animal was standing across a side track when he was struck down by a passing freight train. The creature died. A crane had been called in, and now the immense form hung suspended, in a religious sort of way, above the tragic scene.  
     Within the crowd of spectators I noticed an attractive woman, and sent Mr. Rivers down with an invitation to lunch, which the fair lady accepted. Her name was Eleanor Hilldale. She was a New England sex novelist with fiery red hair and a fondness for barn mice. She had been in the area on a book-tour, promoting her most recent work, The Tight Binds of Loose Passion. Eleanor explained how she concocted her stories of sensuality in a way that would cause her readers to swoon without upsetting the purity-obsessed moralizers of the world too much.   
     After lunch, Eleanor and I made our way upstairs. I desired to show her a collection of rare etchings I had recently purchased. In my bedroom, Elinor sniffed. 
     “Is something burning?” she asked, slipping off her dress.  
     “It is merely my father,” I replied, removing my tie.  
     “Your father!” Eleanor chirped, slipping into the sheets.  
     “Yes, my father. He is burning to death,” I replied, removing my socks.  
     “Your father is burning to death?” she asked, smiling. 
     “I believe so, yes,” I replied, kissing her. 
     Afterwards, we smoked cigarettes on the balcony. It was a lovely afternoon, yet I could not shake the eerie sensation that we were being spied upon. I repeatedly glanced over my shoulder, but no one was there. I stood, returned to my bedroom, and began an inspection. I peered under the bed, in the shower, in my wardrobe, finding no one. However, upon opening my closet door, I discovered a man, hunched over with a box of matches, in the process of setting ablaze my favorite dinner jacket. 
     “Drop those matches!” I ordered. 
     The man shoved his way passed me, bolting for the door. This was the creature who had set my father on fire, and as I agreed with earlier, he must be held accountable for his actions. I raised my pistol, which resides always in an inner coat pocket, and shot the fleeing man in the back of the head. 
     At the sound of gun shots, Mr. Rivers came striding into the room.  
     “Is everything alright, sir?” he asked, glancing about.  
     “Yes, Mr. Rivers,” I assured him, embracing a startled Eleanor Hilldale. 
     “Is there anything I could do, sir?” Mr. Rivers asked. 
     “Will you be kind enough to take this body out to the Garden?” I asked Mr. Rivers. 
      “Yes sir,” he replied, picking up the dead man’s feet and beginning to drag him from the room.  
     “Oh, Mr. Rivers,” I said. 
     “Yes sir?” he replied, pausing in the door. 
     “Where is father?” I asked.  
     “I believe he is burning to death in the Ball Room,” replied Mr. Rivers, then continued out with the body. 
     Eleanor and I returned to our cigarettes. 
     My father continued to burn to death all afternoon and into the early evening, expiring, finally, at ten o’clock that night. Mr. Rivers laid his smoldering body in the Garden next to the dead arsonist. To make it a party of three I phoned down to Hurtling Station, and arranged to have Jumbo sent up. This being done, Mr. Rivers, Eleanor and I, grabbed shovels from the potting shed and began digging the three necessary graves.