BREEDING
fiction by Dymphna
featuring the photography of Eric Goen

i was bred to breathe fire. my mother was a cub scout leader and my father ate fire with the travelling anarchist circus – or so my mother told me. she could rub two sticks together with her toes, while the pink nail polish was drying, and smoke would curl up instantly. when it happened by accident, i would toddle over with my blanky and smother it out. i could feel it coming through beneath my fingers, trying to light the cotton with golden flames, but i would not let it.

not until i was older. that's when i would be allowed to make fire. fire was in my veins; they looked red in the sunlight, instead of blue like everyone else's. fire was in my brain; during school, it leapt and cascaded around the thin walls of our hollow classroom and licked out the windowsills. fire was in other places, too, but these i would learn about when i was older, when i would be allowed to make fire – or so my mother told me.

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