Urban Legend: The Burning Man

Hospital delivery room, 9 October1981.

Dr. Marian Curien, holds the bluish stillborn upside down. It is as still as a doll. The mother, Carma Madden, is lying unconscious on the operating table.

The doctor takes off her mask, revealing a badly deformed nose and mouth from a recent vehicular accident that makes her speech almost inaudible, "No way, you are not dying on me," she says. She turns to her assistants: "Let's bring an angel back to Earth!"

A medical ballet ensues. Four people in green gowns reviving a baby boy with professional coordination. They're all just in their mid-twenties but this is obviously not their first encounter with this kind of situation.

After a few minutes, the baby begins to move, bursting into a high-pitched cry.

The doctor pumps the air: "Yes!"

The team gives each other high-fives. Hey, you think there's some kind of world record for reviving babies?

Suddenly, the baby's right foot ignites. The bluish fire, seemingly generated within the baby, leaves the rest of its body unburned.

"Oh, my God!" Everyone is taken aback." Fire! Fire!"

Dr. Curien tries to snuff the fire using her own hands. "Jesus, where'd it come from? What's going on here?" Upon touching the flame, her whole body quivers with supernatural sensation. The fire is not hot. It's more like tiny pulses of electric energy that runs through her body--giving her a tingling sensation. She has no time to contemplate on it right now. "Wet towel! Give me a wet towel!"

A nurse hands her a dripping towel. "Shit, shit, shit!"

"Language, nurse," Dr. Curien wraps the baby's burning foot with the towel, "there's a baby in the room."

The burning ceases.

Neither the doctor nor the operating table is scorched, but the baby suffers a major flesh and bone burn in its foot. It stops crying, losing consciousness.

"The baby will live," Dr. Curien says as she attends to the baby's wounds. She knows that the baby will walk with a limp for the rest of its life. Well, that's aside from this burning problem. "It's the life I'm worried about."

The nurses are staring at Dr. Curien as if they've seen a ghost.

"Dr. Curien--your face..."

"That's old news, nurse. Haven't you heard? Plastic surgery couldn't do anything about it anymore." Dr. Curien gasps. It's her voice before the accident. No, it can't be. She turns and sees her reflection in the mirror on the wall...

"Oh my God."

Her face has been restored.

Dr. Curien's apartment, 9 October1981.

What just happened?

The charred corpse of a man sits on a living room easy chair, unrecognizable save for the remaining portion of its head. There's nothing left of his arms but a few bones. The skin, muscles, and bones of the torso down to the legs have been burnt to ashes. The only part that remains intact was his left foot that is still inside his undamaged shoe.

Dr. Curien, propped on her bed, is watching this VHS tape about Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC) that she has bought earlier this afternoon. The free book that comes with it, The Burner's Mind by Dr. Sigmund Fraude, lies on her lap.

You should know better, Marian, she tells herself, tossing the book on her side table.

Know what?

Dr Sigmund Fraude appears onscreen and talks with a permanent smile: "Spontaneous Human Combustion is defined as the ability of the human body to inflame in the absence of any external identifiable source of ignition." He points to the blown-up reproduction of the SHC victim's photograph like a slick multi-level salesman showing off his massive network. "Burners or victims of Spontaneous Human Combustion are usually found burned to death with fire that is hot enough to burn flesh and bone to cinders but strangely not hot enough to burn other things surrounding it."

Isn't it a pack of crap?

Dr. Curien's apartment, 10 October1981.

So why am I still watching this?

Dr. Fraude: "The combustion is localized to the body. In most cases, the burner's clothing, nearby furniture and flammable objects remain untouched by fire."

Sounds familiar, Marian?

Dr. Curien moves closer to the television screen as if she were back in med school examining a cadaver. She can see that the victim's clothing was undamaged except in the area of his abdomen. The chair shows very little scorching. The books and newspapers just a few feet away have been spared by the fire. The only visible damage is a little charring on the floor and a layer of soot and grease high on the wall behind the chair.

Dr. Fraude: "Skeptics blame it on alcoholism and insist that there is always a source of fire like a cigarette or a fireplace nearby the victim. Researchers propose that the so-called "candle effect" from the body's flammable body fat deposits, when set alight, would fuel its own combustion. Others call it divine retribution for sinners."

The baby's fire felt so wonderful. Unforgettable.

"But did Spontaneous Human Combustion really heal me?" Dr. Curien is now talking to herself aloud. "What just happened to the baby? What just happened to me?"

Now Dr. Fraude occupies the whole screen, showing the audience his book. "The Burner's Mind explores the Psychological theory of Spontaneous Human Combustion. Simply put, the mind is capable of "short circuiting" the electrical fields that exist within the human body. It triggers an explosive combination of gas and chemicals that creates some sort of atomic chain reaction generating internal heat. And then, Boom! SHC happens."

Crap. Crap. Craaaap!

Yeah, right.

Right.

(TO BE CONTINUED)