"Carpe Mortem" --quinque-- (a short story)       She sits on the cold, hard tile of the bathroom floor, barely thinking.  Her mind is a black cloud of indiscernible emotion.  She questions everything, trusts nothing, yet barely thinks.  Her ears buzz with the thick humming of silence but she is aware of the rat's footsteps downstairs.  He is scurrying.  She knows.  He is scurrying. She closes her eyes and focuses on the comforting emptiness of life that plays blankly behind her lids.  It is nothing, yet to her it is all that is left.  Her hands shake a little, just a little.  Perhaps she is not as stoned as she thinks she is. (she is nervous)  She licks her lips and concentrates for the first time.  Her head spins dizzily at the conscious effort she makes to utilize logic.  At last, she clears the cloud away and witnesses the steady flow of thought within.  She waves hello to the rat swimming in her head, takes not of the toilet passing by.  It was all pleasant scenery. His face suddenly appears and for a moment her heart comes alive and she is struck by an actual physical pain.  Her eyes fly open and the cloud creeps back to swamp her mind.  She sighs -- disappointed.  She reaches for her trusty Zippo and sparks a flame.  She does not smoke.  It is his lighter. She focuses instead on the tiny tongue of fire.  It waves madly at her.  She smiles.  Good old Zippo.  Always so friendly.  Then the room became blurry and the fire was all that she saw.  The fire was all that mattered. "It was a pleasure to burn,"*  she thought.  Fire erased everything.  Fire cleansed everything.  Again his face swam up in her unconscious.  She stared at him bravely.  He smiled, and winked.  Some part of her wanted to falter, wanted to accept defeat.  She would not bow down. She stared.  And concentrated...and focused.  His face burst into flame and the lighter erased him.  Good old Zippo.  Always so friendly. She felt warm.  Very warm.  beads of sweat gathered on her brow and above her lip.  She wiped them away and breathed deeply.  And then came the fire.  it was crawling up her arm.  Somehow, it had already caught onto her hair.  She was burning**. "It was a pleasure to burn."  She smiles. And her ashes sit on the cold, hard tile of the bathroom floor. --CHrySteL 11/8/95 note:  *...from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 **...pyrokinesis often results in freak spontaneous combustion