Flames

She was on her way to my house for the evening. I lit the three candles on my bedside table to help create a romantic and pleasant atmosphere. We had been dating a while now so things were relaxed and pleasant.

The two of us made are way to the bed and things were progressing nicely. Neither of us were paying particularly close attention to the arrangement of the bed’s pillows. All the sudden in the dimly lit room there was instantly a significant increase of light to my immediate left.

I don’t know why but I noticed the light before I noticed the heat. As I looked over my left shoulder I saw my pillow had quickly gone up in flames. I don’t know how big the flame actually was, but it looked huge. I immediately jumped up and grabbed the flaming pillow and ran into the bathroom. I threw it into the tub and turned on the water.

That was a mood killer.

She follows me into the bathroom laughing all the way. I admittedly was upset about losing my favorite pillow (the expensive one with the hole in the middle I bought from my chiropractor) and my matching pillow case. I wasn’t laughing.

In the end there was a slight mark on my bedside table, a slight stain on the bathtub, the loss of my pillow and pillow case, but the damage was minimal.

We opened up the house to let out the smoke and smell of the fire, and I don’t recall any more romantic activity continuing that evening.

The next day I considered cutting off the burned pillow and trying to salvage it, but I dropped it in the trash and bought another.