When You Are Engulfed in Flames

by David Sedaris

Gorging always set her off, but on this occasion it bothered her more than usual. “I hope you choke to death,” she said. I was twelve years old, and paused, thinking, Did I hear her correctly? “That’s right, piggy, suffocate.”

“No,” he said. “The only thing I am afraid of is moutha.” “The snake’s mouth?” “No,” he said, “moutha. I maybe saying it wrong, but moutha. Moutha.” I was on the verge of faking it when he pulled out an electronic dictionary and typed in the word he was looking for, ga, which translates, strangely enough, to “moth.” “You’re afraid of moths?” He nodded yes and winced a little. “But nobody’s afraid of moths.” “I am,” he whispered, and he looked behind us, as if afraid that one might be listening. “Are you afraid of butterflies too?” I asked. The young man cocked his head. “Butterfly,”I said, “colorful cousin of the moth. Are you afraid that he too will attack?” Hugh overheard me saying this and turned around. “What the hell are you two talking about?” And Student No. 2 said, “The wildness.”

Then he started fussing and made it clear that he wanted to look out the window. The father said something that sounded, in tone, like, “You just looked out the window two days ago.”

“Poo,” he repeated. “Everybody out while we clean the water.” As I walked toward the changing room, a second lifeguard fished out the turds. There were four of them, each the size and shape of a cat’s hair ball. “Third time today that’s happened,” the person at the desk told me.

At the pool I currently go to, one of the regulars is a woman with Down syndrome. She’s fairly heavy and wears an old-fashioned swimsuit, the sort with a ruffled skirt. Then there’s this bathing cap that straps beneath her chin and is decorated with rubber flowers. Odd is the great satisfaction I take whenever I beat her from one end to the other. “I won three out of four,” I told Hugh the first time she and I swam together. “I mean I really creamed her.”