People Are Not Fixed Points

It must have happened while he was staring out of the window, half hypnotised by the gulls circling over the patch of wasteground that lies beyond the railway tracks which run behind the Centenary Industrial Estate. Every now and then the birds dropped to earth and busied themselves with something in the scrub that he couldn’t quite make out. He realised he could hear the clock ticking and turned back to his office to see why the salesman had stopped talking. Only then did he see that his visitor had somehow set fire to his hand.

There was no sound or smell, and the salesman’s suit didn’t seem to be burning, yet flames unmistakably wreathed his right fist, which was balled on the desk. Too stunned to shout for help, or throw his glass of water, he just continued to stare at the burning hand.

Then, maybe it was the lack of smoke, or the fact the skin wasn’t blistering under the flames, but a half-thought formed that this might be part of the pitch. Some kind of close magic designed to grab a jaded buyer’s attention. Christ knew these younger idiots would try anything.

He was about to actually laugh when the flames blossomed through the salesman’s collar and engulfed his entire head, swirling across his cheeks and guttering inside his eye sockets, that neatly parted hair lifting away from the scalp like a torched cornfield. Still there was no heat. The room remained stuffy and airless, but no more so than usual for a June afternoon in Brighton.

The salesman’s mouth opened slightly and inside the fire burned harder. ‘It’s all the same,’ he said, unhurried, gentle even. 'They are not two sides of the coin, but entirely indivisible. It is not that one cannot exist without the other, but that there is and only ever has been one.’

And with that the pitch was complete. All that remained was to shake on it.