Knockando: The Flames of Youth

During one relaxed Saturday evening in mid-2000, Fowlie came bursting into Spango’s room, his eyes glistening with the type of excitation that most Knockandians had learnt to know and fear.  The occupants of Spango’s room – Goldberg, Benis and Spango himself – already felt the hair on the backs of their necks rising before they even realized what Fowlie was brandishing in his right hand:  A bottle of benzene.

(A quick aside for those not well-versed in organic chemistry:  Benzene was first distilled from benzoic acid by EIlhard Mitscherlich in 1833.  It proved to be a historic compound because it was the first compound identified as “aromatic” due to its ring-like structure, which was pivotal to the advancement of organic chemistry as a whole.  It is an important intermediate in the production of polymers for use in the plastic industry.  Outside of its industrial applications, many people use it as a solvent and de-greaser, which is why Fowlie was in the possession of this substance.  It is also highly flammable, a fact which the reader is asked to keep in mind...)

Knowing Fowlie as they did, Benis and Goldberg were less than thrilled that he held 750 millilitres of a volatile chemical in his hand.  Benis, who had been lying on Spango’s bed and striking “sexy” poses for his compatriots, watched Fowlie carefully.  (Please note that the seductive posing was not out of the ordinary for the extremely libertine Benis.  In fact, his fellow Knockandians considered it a minor victory that he was still fully clothed.)  Goldberg, dressed in boxer shorts, a t-shirt, and socks, eyed his lanky compatriot warily from the comfort of one of the “spare” chairs that Spango had liberated from the residence rec room.  Only Spango reacted with any kind of excitement.  (Whether this reflected extreme naiveté on Spango’s part or merely demonstrated the depths of his own lunacy remains a point of debate to this day.)  Whatever the day held in store for them, the boys had just realized that caution should be their watchword.

Fowlie informed his fellows that he had spent the last 15 minutes trying to figure out something awesome that he could do with the benzene, and – evidently not being able to dream up a way to lay waste to large swathes of Johannesburg – had not thought of anything sufficiently dramatic.  He then asked his now-wary co-residents what they thought.  The ever-creative Spango fell into reverie, trying to one up his friend as was his usual wont, while Benis and Goldberg began to silently pray to the gods of Beer and Pizza, respectively.  In the meantime, Fowlie strode over to a wine glass that Spango kept on his windowsill, poured a small amount of the benzene into it and ignited it with a match from a matchbox he had procured from Spango’s stash.  The effect of flame captured in a glass apparently caught Spango’s artist’s imagination, and he walked over to Fowlie and attempted to take the bottle from him.

In a rare moment of lucidity, Fowlie realized that turning over a dangerous chemical to someone perhaps not fully aware of its properties might not be the wisest thing he’d ever done.  He resisted Spango’s grab at the bottle, and a brief tug-of-war ensued.  The tug-of-war ended in a draw when the bottle slipped from both their grips and fell to the floor, spilling its contents.  Fowlie exclaimed:  “You're crazy!!”  (Goldberg nervously noticed that Fowlie was grinning ear-to-ear when he said this.)  Spango, ever the showman, replied:  “You want to see crazy, huh??” and took up the box of matches.

Now, it has been said that during times of crisis, the injection of adrenaline into the human brain gives the illusion of time slowing to a crawl.  Thus, the 3 or 4 seconds following the exchange between Spango and Fowlie seemed to take a full minute.  During this time, with Spango brandishing a match above a pool of what the author must re-iterate is a highly flammable fluid, the following thoughts popped into the heads of our 4 protagonists:

GOLDBERG:  “Nobody’s that stupid.  He’s just gonna drop an unlit match to scare us.”

SPANGO:  “It’s just a small puddle of fluid.  What’s the worst that could happen..?”

BENIS:  “What the fucking fuck are these fucking morons fucking doing??”

FOWLIE:  “Something awesome is bound to happen now!!”

Based on his thought, above, Spango thus decided that the most prurient thing he could do would be to light the match and drop it.  Again, with the benefit of adrenaline-induced time dilation, the following events were noted at that point by the men in the room:

 - Spango noted that there was far more benzene on the floor than he had originally calculated.  In fact, most of the linoleum covering the floor of his room was awash in now-aflame fluid.

 - Goldberg noted that the sound that the benzene made when it caught alight was exactly like the noise that fire makes when it dramatically ignites in the movies:  A low-pitched “HHHHHHHHHRRRRWWOOOOOOOOFF!!” that sounds like the first bark of a Hell Hound that has caught your scent.

 - Benis noted the massive irony in the fact that he, a paramedic in training, was probably the only person in the room who knew what to do in this situation, but was unable to do anything, as he was now trapped behind a wall of flame.

 - Fowlie noticed that something awesome had, indeed, happened.

Since it cannot be said for certain which order the ensuing events occurred, they are merely noted here for perusing by future generations who may learn much in the way of the idiocy of twentysomething males:

 - Fowlie and Spango immediately panicked upon noticing the extent of the conflagration.  Fowlie, being surprisingly right-thinking compared to his default setting, set off down the corridor to retrieve the fire extinguisher.  Spango fluttered in circles, then ran out of the room.  He then ran back in and rescued his desk chair, apparently not willing to risk traversing the wall of flame to rescue Goldberg and Benis.

 - Goldberg watched his colleagues run around in circles with bemused trepidation, not fully grasping the situation yet.  He had, however, had the presence of mind to raise his legs and sit in something of a lithotomy position in an attempt to avoid having his sock-clad feet catch on fire.

 - Fowlie returned from his expedition to retrieve the fire extinguisher empty-handed, the extinguisher apparently missing due to some new level of Knockandian hi-jinks.  He glanced furtively around the room for a substitute before attempting to use Spango’s throw rug to smother the flames.  Needless to say, this was not successful.

 - Spango noticed the flames licking up the wall, and screamed:  “My posters, man!!  My fucking posters!!!”  (Again, one is forced to notice the lack of concern for his two trapped compatriots.)  Not 5 seconds later, Spango began using a framed poster to beat out the flames.

 - Benis continued to wonder how the hell he'd ended up in this place.

Fortunately, the forces of physics and chemistry – which so often collude and conspire against Knockandians – proved to be on their side this time.  The fire burnt very hot but very quickly, and the flames were not sustained for a long enough period for anything in the room to properly catch alight.  Just as suddenly as they appeared, they were extinguished as the source of the fuel ran out.

At this point, the four gentlemen converged at the centre of the room.  Benis was giggling uncontrollably at what was one of the more ridiculous things he had ever witnessed.  Goldberg, still completely flabbergasted at Spango’s decision to light the fluid, murmured:  “That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen, I’m going to bed…”, before walking towards the door in a daze.  Spango began surveying the extent of the damage to his room, and Fowlie felt the floor and noted with alarming delight that it was still hot to the touch.

Upon making their way out into the corridor, Benis and Goldberg encountered Geaston and Dawoensh, both of whom had been hard at work studying.  The two intrepid scholars ask what all the commotion had been about.  When informed of the closeness with which our four protagonists had passed by Death’s door, Geaston mused that he likely would have just emerged on a study break to find four charred skeletons lying on the floor, should the worst have come to pass. Dawoensh then summed up the Knockandian ethos perfectly in one line before disappearing back into his room:

“Listen, the next time you guys decide to die in a fire, do it quietly.  Some of us have shit to do.”

Wiser words were seldom spoken in the Hallowed Halls of Knockando.