If you really knew me - Beatty

It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in my fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in my head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With my symbolic helmet numbered 451 on my stolid head, and my eyes all covered in orange flame with the thought of what came next, I flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. I strode in a swarm of fireflies.