Tour

As I remember it pretty-perfect, I was camped in an official camp-ground, on a lawn all by myself. I think it was almost or dark when I got there staying one night only. It was tended by an assumed-farmer who had assigned some of his property to a primitive camp-ground, and not that far from his house as well. It was October and probably getting cold. I was going to cook in the tent and it was already dark.

It was my practice now to use a candle-for-light and cook in the tent also. So I was changing gas-canisters by candlelight. The cannisters were grapefruit size blue bulb-like containers with chrome deep concave underside. Separate was an ignition unit and flame jets, and two stainless-steel struts, that swivelled below the stove ignition unit, and which were snapped into the concave bulb bottom creating a tight seal between the two units. I mis-aligned it. I had never done that before, pushing the sharp ignition access points through the soft metal at the top of the fuel bulb. I missed-pushed and mis-seated the thing. It ill-sealed and a stream of gas escaped in a longitudinal plume. Whether it actually was slow-motion, or whether my mind speeded to warp-weft, I watched the white cloudy plume extend, index finger undulation, until it breathed into the shell shape candle flame - and Boom ! It exploded.

I was on fire in the mists of inferno. The tent screen entrance-exit was zipped, but I dove ripping through it. Not a time for Cans and Cant's. I was aflame but rolled and wriggled in the night air-damp grass; and extinguished myself almost in an instant. I was always fast. I was the last to be-caught.

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