Even in here, I feel the flash of heat, and smell the accelerant. (That’s petroleum, to you. The other thing old men do is watch a great deal of bad procedural drama on satellite television.) Flames outside the window. The flicker of the same from other rooms, and a stark choice: go out and suffer whatever those faceless shits intend, or stay inside a burning house. Their backup plan: glass bottles with rags in them, no doubt, making of my castle an oven in which to cook me. Me, and my granddaughter and her maybe-lover.