The Girl in the Flammable Skirt

“Another favorite for the past twenty years and I'm only 33 but I am loyal!! Aimee Bender has never disappointed, and fed my emerging love for magical realism. Having to live with too heavy of a grief at far too young of an age (mom died when I was 12 / she was my person) finding an adult world to soak myself in that still understood the necessary magic needed to survive any day ever was incredibly meaningful. I think about a number of these short stories on a monthly, if not weekly basis. They shaped me in so many fundamental ways. Another find from early 2000s myspace times, someone had a quote from the titular story that enraptured me immediately and made me buy the book the very next bookstore visit. Quote below <3 I think of that girl I read about in the paper - the one with the flammable skirt. She'd bought a rayon chiffon skirt, purple with wavy lines all over it. She wore it to a party and was dancing, too close to the vanilla-smelling candles, and suddenly she lit up like a pine needle torch. When the boy dancing next to her felt the heat and smelled the plasticky smell, he screamed and rolled the burning girl up in the carpet. She got third-degree burns up and down her thighs. But what I keep wondering about is this: that first second when she felt her skirt burning, what did she think? Before she knew it was the candles, did she think she'd done it herself? With the amazing turns of her hips and the warmth of the music inside her, did she believe, for even one glorious second, that her passion had arrived?”