PINK ASHES by johnny ngo
i heard that people explode from tasting their own personal nirvana.
spontaneous human combustion. i’ve never seen it actually happen. i’ve seen the ashes afterwards. they’re pink. i’ve read that the body releases this chemical right before it ignites and this chemical, this chemical makes your insides pink. they don’t teach you that in biology class, not even in AP biology. my high school was not that kind of high school. when i read about the pink ashes, i imagined the color of pink to be the kind of pink like the fleeting color of the sky at the end of a long day when the sun sets. my guess wasn’t too far off.
i came home late from a school dance. i was drunk. i accidentally stumbled into my parents’ room and all i saw was pink ashes. it was on their sheets, the floor, and the ceiling. even the family dog had a little pink in her fur. i knew my parents combusted, but why? was it from sex? some intimate conversation? well, whatever it was, i concluded that i was not part of it. i was never a product of their nirvana.
the next morning, i sat in the kitchen at the breakfast table replaying the scene i witnessed last night. as much as i loved my mom and dad, i didn’t want to end up like them. whatever they experienced, i wasn’t ready. i grabbed my bike and closed the door.
i went to see my girlfriend. we kissed. she undressed. i left.
i visited my grandparents. i told them about my parents. i cried.
i went to see my girlfriend again. she was still undressed. i left.
i tried that drug the jocks were smoking. i laughed a lot. i cried.
the whole day i did things that excited me and then calmed me. all that thinking about nirvana and combustion really got to me. i went to the library and found some books about it. it turns out nirvana was also a popular American rock band during the 1990’s. the first human combustion was dated 2050, forty-five years ago. i guess somewhere along the line of human existence happiness became too real for human physiology. that’s too bad.
i started to wonder if there were any records of implosions, but i found nothing. i went to the front desk.
“excuse me, has there ever been a case of spontaneous human implosion?”
“if there was, how would anybody know? an implosion would be untraceable.”
i thought about it.
“shit.”
“what is it, kid?”
“well, you can either end up in a pink pile of dust or go unnoticed.”
the librarian thought about it.
“what a time to be alive then.”
