Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
cles on her neck, her shoulders, her breasts, kissing each spot, then
feeding on her mouth before continuing the trail downward. Warmth
spread over Marlena’s face. It surprised her. Such passion, such heat,
such... smoke?
Suddenly Harry yelped, flung himself off the bed and yanked
Marlena to the floor with him. The conical mosquito netting, having
floated onto the burning candle, was now like a snowy Christmas
tree aflame, the fine white mesh turning into a blackened web of
dancing tendrils and lattices. Marlena scrambled to her feet and
flung open the door, shouting, “Fire! Fire!” She was about to run out,
when she remembered she was naked, and stood paralyzed in the
doorway looking back at the brightly burning room.
“We have to get out!” she cried. But Harry had transformed into
heroic mode: he grabbed a piece of cloth on the floor, doused it with a
bottle of water from the nightstand, and flogged at the flames licking
the ceiling. Seconds later, after an eternity had passed, Harry put
down the wet rag. “It’s out,” he announced wearily. Marlena turned on
the light. The charred wisps of netting floated like a scorched ghost.
Under the fluorescent blueness and amid blackened debris, Harry
and Marlena had to confront the various concave and convex slopes
of their nakedness. This time it was without the forgiving glow of lust
and candlelight, and soon, without privacy as well. What was this?
Shouts of men, footsteps pounding the plankway! Harry and Mar­
lena frantically sought their clothes, so recently abandoned on the
floor with happy tosses. Harry managed to locate his trousers and
was struggling to get one leg in, while Marlena found only a soggy
wad of blackened orange gauze, and realized all at once that this was
the pathetic remnant of her sheath, which had been used to put out
the fire in more ways than one. She moaned, and at that moment four
Burmese men with fire extinguishers rushed in, and Marlena sprang
into the bathroom with a shriek exactly one second too late.
Though the fire was out, the men doused the smoldering ceiling
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