On Fire
If you are on fire, do not run. Your feet will want to carry you away, but you must plant yourself. Resist the impulse. That is the immediate course of action: to stop.
Next, you must drop. Make sure not to drop theatrically. There is no need to utter sharp cries or to press a wrist to your forehead and fall away like an ancient oak. Recall that you are not suffering from the vapors. You are on fire. It is best to drop without affectation, like a sack of turnips.
The final step, in the event that you have stopped and dropped but find yourself still on fire, is to roll. Strive to roll in an easy but purposeful fashion. Roll neither too artfully nor too naturally. If you devote yourself to the rigors of art, you will fail to notice the flames spreading in unexpected directions. Yet if you surrender to animal impulses, you will only flail and fan the fire. Death is the sure result in either case. Do not ponder this point, but simply roll.
The flames will expire as you choke off their oxygen. Air, sweet air, will be theirs no more to devour, but yours to freely breathe. Savor your victory. You who can make fire have also unmade it. Fire is not your master. You are not yet ashes.
Your clothes may be ruined. It is no use trying to clean them. There is no soap powerful enough, no launderer sufficiently expert to erase the scorch marks. Store them in an airtight box so that years from now, you may open the box and inhale the fragrance of singed fabric. The mud and grass stains will testify that when your flirtation with fire took a calamitous turn, you retained the presence of mind to stop, to drop, and finally to roll.
