Pokémon and Other Eternal Sins

by Elia Karra

When I was four years old, I caught fire in a church. My (then and still) favorite white puffer jacket engulfed in incandescence, the embroidery of a friendly bear on the back falling off the melting polyester in bits. Haze and smoke filled the church, the smell of incense and burning tires and beeswax from the candles. I was a candle myself, set alight by the careless hand of the old woman next to me.

Probably.

No one saw what happened. One moment I wasn’t on fire, and the next moment I was. Later, when the initial shock wore off, I liked to think that I had unlocked some superpower. It seemed fitting that it would be fire. It was the spark I never had. I could imagine my 90s transformation montage, going from the kid who always played alone to the king (not the queen. I didn’t want to be a queen) of the playground. They would ask me to warm their hands and their lunches. They would bring me plastic spoons to melt. They would love to watch me.

Later still, when I understood such things better, when I had already spent years in a Christian school, lectured daily about all my ten-year-old-kid sins, and after so long without another fire incident to confirm my superpower suspicions, I liked to think that my spontaneous combustion was due to God not liking me very much. Perhaps my baptism didn’t wash away the original sin. Perhaps I had done something unforgivable at four years old, like play Pokémon (the stuff of the devil) or curse at my mother when she forced me to throw the tattered remains of my beloved jacket in the trash without so much as a eulogy. Or maybe God just knew I would grow up to be a piece of shit and wanted to nip it in the bud.

I still like to think that, sometimes. It’s not as nice as throwing fireballs out of your hands, not as impressive, but it’s something. My go-to thing to say when someone asks a fun fact about me, along with my Bacon number (three). I’d probably abuse a superpower anyway.

Elia Karra (she/they) is an author and filmmaker from Athens, Greece. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cease, Cows, the first Bullshit Lit anthology, Crow & Cross Keys, and others. You can find her lurking on Twitter @eliakarra or at eliakarra.com.