In the summer of 2009, my friend Dalfino invited me to come to a party that was to be held in the middle of a forest in the Corsham Wilderness. Since I really love going there by myself, I thought it would probably be quite nice to attend a party there. It turned out to be one of the more unusual social events that I’ve attended over the years.
When I arrived, it was very dark and the only real light source was a small camp fire that’d been made earlier. I had come with Dalfino and also my friend Christian, but, at one point a person who I’d never seen before took me aside. It seemed that, for whatever reason, this nice young man wanted to show me his pubic hair. It’s odd because, it’s not something I was especially keen to see and, since he’d never met me before, I can’t image he was especially keen for me to see it either! But I suppose trying to understand the intentions of a stranger, especially a drunken one, may be a little futile.
Anyway, the event went on and not that much else happened, until somebody decided that it might be fun to splash alcohol on themselves and then step into the camp fire so that their body was quickly covered in flames. Now, before I continue with the story (and, I dare say that the title gives away the ending anyway) I think this might be a good place to say that I’ve always been rather horrified by the idea of somebody being consumed by fire. I’m not quite sure why, but from time to time I’ll have a nightmare where somebody is walking along while their entire body is burning, it just seems horrible. As you can imagine, I was more than a little concerned when I saw that this unusual fear of mine was quickly becoming a reality.
Thankfully, this was yet another situation where carrying a water bottle with me turned out to be a huge benefit. I rushed over to him and a strong squirt to his front and a strong squirt to his back later he was extinguished.
“Cheers, mate,” he said.
I smiled at him and that was that.
When I arrived, it was very dark and the only real light source was a small camp fire that’d been made earlier. I had come with Dalfino and also my friend Christian, but, at one point a person who I’d never seen before took me aside. It seemed that, for whatever reason, this nice young man wanted to show me his pubic hair. It’s odd because, it’s not something I was especially keen to see and, since he’d never met me before, I can’t image he was especially keen for me to see it either! But I suppose trying to understand the intentions of a stranger, especially a drunken one, may be a little futile.
Anyway, the event went on and not that much else happened, until somebody decided that it might be fun to splash alcohol on themselves and then step into the camp fire so that their body was quickly covered in flames. Now, before I continue with the story (and, I dare say that the title gives away the ending anyway) I think this might be a good place to say that I’ve always been rather horrified by the idea of somebody being consumed by fire. I’m not quite sure why, but from time to time I’ll have a nightmare where somebody is walking along while their entire body is burning, it just seems horrible. As you can imagine, I was more than a little concerned when I saw that this unusual fear of mine was quickly becoming a reality.
Thankfully, this was yet another situation where carrying a water bottle with me turned out to be a huge benefit. I rushed over to him and a strong squirt to his front and a strong squirt to his back later he was extinguished.
“Cheers, mate,” he said.
I smiled at him and that was that.
(I wrote a few small things for The Hidden Tower, David Tubb’s blog. Click here to read them.)
