In Your Face

Two nights ago I blew up a mostly empty plastic diesel can in my face. We were on night two of mushroom wine at my house - same five people - and we decided to go outside and light a fire so we adjurned to my fire pit which had a bunch of wood for the fire, but the wood was from an old porch deck so it was wet. My trusty fire starter diesel can was mostly empty so I was standing up shaking droplets of fuel onto the fire. This worked out fine because the flare-ups from the fire were not tall enough to make a bridge to the can.

But a little later I was doing it sitting down. There was barely any fuel in the can and I was shaking it when BAM! My whole field of vision was filled with fire and I threw myself back to escape from it. I looked and saw that the burning can was right by my head so I sat up. I was completely deaf from the sound of the explosion.

I shook myself off, told everyone that I was ok and walked over to the faucet and poured cold water over my head and face. I came back top the fire and sat beside it with a cold wet towel over my face to cool it. I felt my eyebrows and lashes and figured that since they were still there, I must be alright.

Later I drove into town and took a shower to clean the burnt smell off and cut a bit of Aaron's aloe plant and made a poultice for my face. Aaron also had second skin burn pads. Yesterday I kept vitamin e oil and comfrey on my face and I am fine today. My face looks like I got a little sun, and I have these cool tiger-stripe marks under my eyes. It doesn't hurt at all.

I just can't forget seeing the ball of fire right in my face. I imagine what it would be like if you couldn't get away from it, if there was more fuel and what I saw must be what you see when a bomb expoldes in your face - right before you burn alive. Trippy stuff. Being on mushrooms at the time really made it all imprint quite clearly in my mind.

A friend who was there said I was kissed by fire.

Posted by bogsters at April 6, 2004 12:18 PM