You emerge from the burning wreckage disoriented by the smoke and flying glass shards. You stumble a few steps into the road, confused by the smell of frying bacon.
The odor takes you back to the kitchen of your youth. You reminisce about the Sunday morning breakfasts of french toast and sausage. You recall the loyalty of your dog Blitzo and the sounds of summer vacation. But the haze of your nostalgia is broken when you realize the bacon odor that triggered your memories is your own burning skin.
You sprint to the nearby lake, looking for a break in the ice. You spy one and belly-flop into the icy water. You swim deep into the murky depths, relishing the cool waves that soothe your charcoal skin. You close your eyes as the light from the surface dims and kick harder hoping to reach the lake bottom.
You touch the muddy bottom, kick-turn and explode towards the surface. Breaking through a mantle of thin ice , you crawl to shore. Searching for shelter, you stumble towards a church, kick in the locked door and run to the altar. A priest, alarmed by your noisy intrusion, confronts you as you drink from the little fountain by the door.
You try to apologize for drinking the Holy Water, but your lips are literally peeling off from the rapid change from burning heat to freezing cold. You’d heard in a history class that the Spanish Inquisition used to torture people by dipping them in vats of alternating hot and cold water so their skin peeled like a tomato, but you never believed it until it happened to you.
Inquisition! As the priest cradles your pus-dripping head, you see him for the monster he is. He dipped you in the water! He’s trying to get you to confess and then burn you at the stake! You claw desperately with what’s left of your hands at his evil face.
You cry like a baby, as sanity slips from your grasp. You drop to the floor, sucking your thumb, and assume the fetal position. Mooing like a cow and telling the just-arrived paramedics you’re a space alien, you’re carted away in a straitjacket to the loony bin.
THEEND