Spontaneous Combustion Quotes

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightening, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the Queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

He leaves less than a foot of space between us and I'm 10 inches away from spontaneous combustion.

If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm." "Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in. "Nonsense," Dionysus said. "Boy wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself. I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father.

I sneaked out to his house a couple times in the middle of the night to watch over him while he slept, just in case, I don't know, his comic book collection decided to spontaneously combust. This was dumb and admittedly creepy in an Edward Cullen kind of way.

I'm still kind of a mess. But I think we all are. No one's got it all together. I don't think you ever do get it totally together. Probably if you did manage to do it you'd spontaneously combust. I think that's a law of nature. If you ever manage to become perfect, you have to die instantly before you ruin things for everyone else.

Arson is a respected profession among certain subcultures in Jersey, and the good ones don't get caught. The good ones channel lightning and mysterious acts of spontaneous combustion.

Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.

Spontaneous combustion IS a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in.

As soon as a man and woman of almost any age are alone together within four walls it is assumed that anything may happen. Spontaneous combustion, instant fornication, triumph of the senses. What possibilities men and women must see in each other to infer such dangers. Or, believing in the dangers, how often they must think about the possibilities.

They’d found it worked on Nico better than nectar, helping to cleanse the fatigue and darkness from his system with less danger of spontaneous combustion.

I’m not dead yet. It’s all good. (Omari) Good. That whole spontaneous combustion thing can be a real buzzkill. Ruins your clothes, too. (Nero)

If you'd sat there any longer,' Annabeth said, 'you would have spontaneously combusted. I hope the conversation was worth it?

I believed in immaculate conception and spontaneous combustion. I believed in aliens from outer space and vampires, prophecy, and the resurrection of the dead. I had deja vu many times each day. I was thirteen.

I could spend a year trying to describe him, but you still wouldn't fully appreciate his unique appeal until your panties spontaneously combusted the first time he smiled at you.

Put something in your stomach to absorb the alcohol before you spontaneously combust from the fumes. (Nykyrian) Yeah, it’d be a damn shame to blow my internal organs all over your new shirt.(Syn)

It was not healthy for one man's smile to make my panties spontaneously combust

I like your…outfit.” His eyes took in the naked flesh that was visible below the edge of the shirttail. “I like your outfit too. You’re looking awfully casual this morning, Professor.” He leaned forward and gave her a heated look. “Miss Mitchell, you’re lucky I decided to put on any clothes at all.” He chuckled at her fierce blush and disappeared into the kitchen. Oh, gods of all virgins who are planning to have sex with their sex-god (no blasphemy intended) boyfriends, please don’t let me spontaneously combust when he finally takes me to bed. I really need a Gabriel-induced orgasm, especially after last night. Please. Please. Pretty please…

No offense, but I’m getting stir-crazy. Can we please go downstairs and hang in the bar or do anything that keeps me from sitting here bored out of my mind while the three of you watch me grow eyebrow hair? I mean really, I am fine. I’m not going to spontaneously combust or do anything else freaky. Promise. (Tory)

Andrus turned the engine and gave her a suspicious look. “You smell like...” He shifted into drive. “What?” “Nothing, but—did something happen inside?” Could he really smell…that? He crinkled his nose. “Your face is red and your scent is…” Oh, God. He can! Kill me now! Giant bomb, falling tree, spontaneous combustion…anything!

Success is not due to spontaneous combustion. You have to set yourself on fire.

I want to do something spontaneous, like combust.

I also suspected he was on the cover of the Denver Firefighters calendar, picture used for the month of July, he was that hot. If the firefighters merged with the police officers and they did a group shot that included Lawson and Jury, the paper might spontaneously combust.

She could be a fire hazard. Maybe we should remove her from the ship before she spontaneously combusts.

I sometimes wish I could spontaneously combust. Burn until nothing but ash is left, to be washed away by the wind and the rain.

Vampires, contrary to popular belief, don't incinerate when exposed to sunlight. If that were true, there would be a heck of a lot more stories about spontaneous combustion around the world. They are, however, very sensitive to sunlight and their skin cannot take long term exposure without damaging and burning it, which was painful. From Vampire Princess Rising book two of the Winters Saga

What the cold light showed me was that my situation was simply unlivable. I wanted, with a desire greater than any desire which I had ever conceived could exist without instantly killing its owner by spontaneous combustion, something which I simply could not have.

I did get so wigged out that I sneaked out to his house a couple times in the middle of the night to watch over him while he slept, just in case, I don't know, his comic book collection decided to spontaneously combust. This was dumb and admittedly creepy in an Edward Cullen kind of way, but it was the only thing I could think to do.

No one wanted to spontaneously combust into flames, especially not in traffic.’ – Sundown

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion; you must set yourself on fire.

Concentrate on the question. Oooh, interesting. I haven't seen that stone in that position before. Have you had a history of spontaneous combustion in your family?" His eyes widened in surprise. I grinned."Just kidding.

He reminded me of Gerald Roma from grade school, who used to burn ants with a magnifying glass. He was never quite right. It was weird that he spontaneously combusted during finals week our freshman year in college. Payback was a bitch.

The Necrotelicomnicon was written by a Klatchian necromancer known to the world as Achmed the Mad, although he preferred to be called Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches. It is said that the book was written in one day after Achmed drank too much of the strange thick Klatchian coffee which doesn't just sober you up, but takes you through sobriety and out the other side, so that you glimpse the real universe beyond the clouds of warm self-delusion that sapient life usually generates around itself to stop it turning into a nutcake. Little is known about his life prior to this event, because the page headed 'About The Author' spontaneously combusted shortly after his death. However, a section headed 'Other Books By the Same Author' indicates that his previous published work was Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches's Book of Humorous Cat Stories, which might explain a lot.

I’m 100% certain of the quality of story I’m writing until I finish the outline and actually begin to write. At this point, I’m 100% certain the story sucks and I will never show it to another living soul. Until I type “THE END.” At this point, I’m 50% certain it sucks, 50% certain it’s brilliant, and 100% certain if I don’t show it to someone I will spontaneously combust.

If he was in danger of anything at all, it was spontaneous submissive combustion due to his master’s teasing.

He wasn’t steaming anymore, but the incident on the ice bridge had really freaked Jason out. Leo hadn’t seemed to realize that he had smoke coming out his ears and flames dancing through his hair. If Leo started spontaneously combusting every time he got excited, they were going to have a tough time taking him anywhere. Jason imagined trying to get food at a restaurant. I’ll have a cheeseburger and—Ahhh! My friend’s on fire! Get me a bucket!

Fletch is back from Austin, and turns out what sounded great on paper didn't match up to reality. He says its so hot down there, I'd spontaneously combust the second I stepped off the plane. Plus with humidity turning the air as thick as oatmeal, my hair would always be a disaster. So, Austin's out.

[Trip] “You’re a pain in the ass. A wordy pain in the ass.” “Here are two more words for you. Interfering jerk.” “Stubborn idiot.” “Government patsy.” “Bookworm,” Trip shot back, and then he had her up against her car, his mouth on hers, his hands on her body, taking as much of her as he could get. She came right back at him, curling her hands into his shirt, trying to drag him closer, which was impossible since the only thing between them was a couple of thin layers of clothing and enough heat to cause spontaneous combustion.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never get struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us.

My life spontaneously combusted...

What the hell do you want from me?” “Spontaneous combustion.

I have spoken in tongues of fire. I have torn whole towns in two for love. I have courted insanity, crouching in the gap between what this moment feels like (smoldering fire fanned into the most logical flames) and how it looks to other people (the psychotic break of spontaneous combustion). I can feel the sensation of being called CRAZY when you feel WOUNDED and DESPERATE.

If we value human life – as any reasonable and moral person must – then fearing anarchists rather than political leaders is like fearing spontaneous combustion rather than heart disease. In the category of “causing deaths,” a single government leader outranks all anarchists tens of thousands of times.

Jimmy Finn was not burned in the calaboose, but died a natural death in a tan vat, of a combination of delirium tremens and spontaneous combustion. When I say natural death, I mean it was a natural death for Jimmy Finn.

It's somehow worse, now, after I've slept, because of that one moment-you know the one- when you're just waking up and you forget the new reality. Forget how your life has spontaneously combusted and instead think it was all just a bad dream. That everything's going to be okay. Until you remember. You jolt up, look around, and realize nothing is ever going to be okay again. That's exactly where I'm at right now.

One day the worlds male population will spontaneously combust because they've kept too much stuff in for too long.

He places a firm hand on my thigh to steady himself as he takes a picture of the scenery, because he wants me to spontaneously combust, apparently.

She lifted an eyebrow. "Hmm, I wonder why? Wouldn't have to do with a certain sexy hexy, would it?" "If you mean the annoying asshole who was here earlier, yes." Vinca and Giguhl traded a glance and then looked at me. "Please," Gighul said. "You're so hot for that mancy you're about to spontaneously combust.

...somewhere forest fires rage and somewhere else something moves beneath dark waters and somewhere blood appears in the hallway of the home of some old couple who aren’t bleeding and somewhere someone else spontaneously self-combusts and somehow all the mysteries of this world as I know it offer me comfort and I don’t know beans about heaven and hell and somehow all that stuff is no longer an issue and at the moment I’m a sixteen-foot-tall five-hundred-and-forty-eight-pound man inside this six-foot body and all i can feel is the pressure all I can feel is the pressure and the need for release.

Woah! Lina, you look . . .” Thomas’s jaw literally dropped. But then he noticed Howard looking at him like he was a deer during hunting season and he quickly cleared his throat. “Sorry. Nice dress. You look really pretty.” “You look nice too.” Gray fitted suit. Hair styled messily. I could practically hear Addie spontaneously combusting from here.

Clay, what do you think about this one?" I asked, trying to redirect his attention. He was looking at Hunter like he hoped he would spontaneously combust. He glanced at the screen. "King Triton and a mermaid?" "Yeah. It's kind of cool." "Clay doesn't have the abs to pull that off," Hunter spoke, peering over. "You on the other hand would look fabulous as a mermaid." I could feel Clay's temperature starting to boil. "I suppose you think you're the perfect one to pull off this costume?" he accused. Hunter snorted. "I wouldn't be caught dead dressing up like that, but yeah, my abs would work.

You just missed a perfectly good opportunity to toast an awful Coldplay T-shirt. If I ever spontaneously combust, I hope I’m holding a whole stack of their CDs.

Thinking is not a case of spontaneous combustion; it does not occur just on "general principles.

The most likely victim of spontaneous human combustion is a solitary woman, 75 percent of all known cases of SHC are women. I tell her that some people believe that arsonist poltergeists are to blame, that the spirits of firestarters roam the cities setting souls on fire.

I don't know what laws of physics are involved, but if you fill a gym with teenagers and tell them to stare at one object, heat is actually produced. I half expected to spontaneously combust. Katrina

Life may be chemistry, but it's a special circumstance of chemistry. Organisms exist not because of reactions that are possible, but because of reactions that are barely possible. Too much reactivity and we would spontaneously combust. Too little, and we would turn cold and die. Proteins enable these barely possible reactions, allowing us to live on the edges of chemical entropy-skating perilously, but never falling in.

dioxide. Result? Fire. I will credit my father for two things: he could conjure a spontaneous combustion whenever he needed a convenient sign from God.” She shook her head. “Boy, did we go through the pistachios.

Susan Baker,' she says to me, 'I hope you never light a fire with coal-oil. Or leave oily rags lying around, Susan. They have been known to cause spontaneous combustion in less than an hour. How would you like to stand and watch this house burn down, Susan, knowing it was your fault?' Well, Miss Dew dear, I had my laugh on her over that. It was that very night she set her curtains on fire and the yells of her are ringing in my ears yet.

What was really unfair about the whole thing was that Oma Kristel hadn't so much exploded as spontaneously combusted. But Gossip is Baron Münchhausen's little sister, and never lets the truth get in the way of a good story.

I am about to step forward to assist, but she seems all right, rubbing her head and apologizing to the entire world. I hope she doesn’t stab herself with a straw or spontaneously combust. Then I’ll never get my coffee. I cannot start my day without it.

THERE HAS BEEN A SILENT DIVORCE IN THE CHURCH, SPEAKING generally, between the Word and the Spirit. When there is a divorce, sometimes the children stay with the mother, sometimes with the father. In this divorce you have those on the Word side and those on the Spirit side. What is the difference? Those on the Word side stress earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to the saints, expository preaching, sound theology, rediscovering the doctrines of the Reformation—justification by faith, sovereignty of God. Until we get back to the Word, the honor of God’s name will not be restored. What is wrong with this emphasis? Nothing. It is exactly right, in my opinion. Those on the Spirit side stress getting back to the Book of Acts, signs, wonders, and miracles, gifts of the Holy Spirit—with places being shaken at prayer meetings, get in Peter’s shadow and you are healed, lie to the Holy Spirit and you are struck dead. Until we recover the power of the Spirit, the honor of God’s name will not be restored. What is wrong with this emphasis? Nothing. It is exactly right, in my opinion. The problem is, neither will learn from the other. But if these two would come together, the simultaneous combination would mean spontaneous combustion. And if Smith Wigglesworth’s prophecy got it right, the world will be turned upside down again.

Somewhere in my heart a little door closed with a clean, quiet "snick." I was through with Mike Terwilliger. And he had moved on to a woman who, while she obviously didn't make him entirely happy, was still better suited to him than I was. Whether he stayed with her or left her within a year, I knew it wouldn't affect me either way. Instead of waiting for them to collapse on themselves, I would be living my life. I may not have wished them well, but at least I wasn't devoting precious energy to wishing they would spontaneously combust.

What is chemistry in a relationship, Really? Chemistry can be spontaneous combustion that excites, incites, often harms. But not understood. Chemistry can also be that which is studied, intentional, and knows how to be repeated and improved upon. Do you have the right chemistry?

was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think—as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it.

Whereas real love would be simple. It might shoot up and down until it spontaneously combusted, but it would not, could not, just dissolve.

You just missed a perfectly good opportunity to toast an awful Coldplay T-shirt. If I ever spontaneously combust, I hope I’m holding a whole stack of their CDs.” Harper

Excuse me, it's your place as a friend to tell them when they're almost dating a guy who can't even use the word "gay" without spontaneously combusting

on such matters as reincarnation, poltergeists, astral projection, and spontaneous human combustion.

White undershirt. Dark-framed glasses. Sneak peeks at black boxers. Really? How much more was a girl supposed to be able to take before she either spontaneously combusted or found a shower with a removable showerhead?

?-: Yes, I must say, that part distressed me a bit. I had no idea girls could do that... (JUNE and RUTH look at him.) RUTH: Do what, exactly? ?-: Be nude. I thought they just spontaneously combusted or something if they even tried taking off their sweaters. JUNE: But, how did you think we bathed? ?-: I just assumed you just never got dirty, with the exception of your hair. You know, cause girls are always washing their hair... JUNE: But this is ridiculous. How did you think sex happened? ?-: To be honest, I’d never really thought about sex. Oh, dear... Am I going to have to do that someday? Are we? I need to read up on this. (He takes out a memorandum and begins scribbling.)

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all likely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stopped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman

There's an old poem by Neruda that I've always been captivated by, and one of the lines in it has stuck with me ever since the first time I read it. It says "love is so short, forgetting is so long." It's a line I've related to in my saddest moments, when I needed to know someone else had felt that exact same way. And when we're trying to move on the moments we always go back to aren't the mundane ones. They are the moments you saw sparks that weren't really there, felt stars aligning without having any proof, saw your future before it happened, and then saw it slip away without any warning. These are moments of newfound hope, extreme joy, intense passion, wishful thinking, and in some cases, the unthinkable letdown. And in my mind, every one of these memories looks the same to me. I see all of these moments in bright, burning red. My experiences in love have taught me difficult lessons, especially my experiences with crazy love. The red relationships. The ones that went from zero to a hundred miles per hour and then hit a wall and exploded. And it was awful. And ridiculous. And desperate. And thrilling. And when the dust settled, it was something I’d never take back. Because there is something to be said for being young and needing someone so badly, you jump in head first without looking. And there's something to be learned from waiting all day for a train that's never coming. And there's something to be proud of about moving on and realizing that real love shines golden like starlight, and doesn't fade or spontaneously combust. Maybe I’ll write a whole album about that kind of love if I ever find it. But this album is about the other kinds of love that I’ve recently fallen in and out of. Love that was treacherous, sad, beautiful, and tragic. But most of all, this record is about love that was red.

I was thirty-seven years old and wearing nothing but a butt plug. But there was a 1940's film-star Toby, looking about to spontaneously combust from sheer desire. It was probably hysterical postpubescent hormones, but still, it felt so good. So ridiculously good.

Oh, gods of all virgins who are planning to have sex with their sex-god (no blasphemy intended) boyfriends, please don’t let me spontaneously combust when he finally takes me to bed. I really need a Gabriel-induced orgasm, especially after last night. Please. Please. Pretty please…

There are historical moments when an alignment of forces causes a shift in human outlook. It happened to art and philosophy and science at the beginning of the Renaissance, and again at the beginning of the Enlightenment. Now, in the early twentieth century, modernism was born by the breaking of the old strictures and verities. A spontaneous combustion occurred that included the works of Einstein, Picasso, Matisse, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Joyce, Eliot, Proust, Diaghilev, Freud, Wittgenstein, and dozens of other path-breakers who seemed to break the bonds of classical thinking.52 In

Calvin,” she said, reverting to her standard scientific tone, “did you know pistachios are naturally flammable? It’s because of their high fat content. Normally pistachios are stored under fairly rigid conditions of humidity, temperature, and pressure, but should those conditions be altered, the pistachio’s fat-cleaving enzymes produce free fatty acids that are broken down when the seed takes in oxygen and sheds carbon dioxide. Result? Fire. I will credit my father for two things: he could conjure a spontaneous combustion whenever he needed a convenient sign from God.” She shook her head.

But tonight wasn't all bad." There was something sly in her voice. "Really? I mean, nobody spontaneously combusted so I guess that goes in the win column, but it wasn't one for the record books." "Kissing you raises the evening's score by quite a bit." "But I haven't…" "Cormac, shut up and kiss me." "Yes, ma'am.

At a level of about 18,000 parts per million (ppm), the RFHCO would start to melt. At 20,000 ppm, the fuel vapor could spontaneously combust, without any exposure to a spark or flame, just from the friction caused by the movement of air. Waving your hand through the fuel vapor, at that concentration, could ignite it. The

Life may be chemistry, but it’s a special circumstance of chemistry. Organisms exist not because of reactions that are possible, but because of reactions that are barely possible. Too much reactivity and we would spontaneously combust. Too little, and we would turn cold and die. Proteins enable these barely possible reactions, allowing

The way I figure it, everyone gets one miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a nobel prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But If you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will happen to each of us.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lighting, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us.

Every choice I’ve made since my life spontaneously combusted has been questioned. There has never been a shortage of people standing by, waiting to pass judgment on the way I choose to deal with things. People who have never been through any sort of shit always assume that they know how you should react to having your life destroyed. And the people who have been through shit think you’re supposed to deal with it the exact same way they did. As if there’s a playbook for surviving hell.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightening, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the Queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

None,” Einstein said. “Relativity is a purely scientific matter and has nothing to do with religion.”51 That was no doubt true. However, there was a more complex relationship between Einstein’s theories and the whole witch’s brew of ideas and emotions in the early twentieth century that bubbled up from the highly charged cauldron of modernism. In his novel Balthazar, Lawrence Durrell had his character declare, “The Relativity proposition was directly responsible for abstract painting, atonal music, and formless literature.” The relativity proposition, of course, was not directly responsible for any of this. Instead, its relationship with modernism was more mysteriously interactive. There are historical moments when an alignment of forces causes a shift in human outlook. It happened to art and philosophy and science at the beginning of the Renaissance, and again at the beginning of the Enlightenment. Now, in the early twentieth century, modernism was born by the breaking of the old strictures and verities. A spontaneous combustion occurred that included the works of Einstein, Picasso, Matisse, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Joyce, Eliot, Proust, Diaghilev, Freud, Wittgenstein, and dozens of other path-breakers who seemed to break the bonds of classical thinking.52 In his book Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty That Causes Havoc, the historian of science and philosophy Arthur I. Miller explored the common wellsprings that produced, for example, the 1905 special theory of relativity and Picasso’s 1907 modernist masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

The extreme consolidation in the corporate world over the past three decades has produced a playing field so rigged against consumers that pursuing the basics of life can feel like navigating a never-ending series of scams. It’s as if everyone is trying to trick us in the fine print of pages and pages of terms of service agreements they know we will never read. The black box is not just the algorithms running our communication networks—almost everything is a black box, an opaque system hiding something else. The housing market isn’t about homes; it’s about hedge funds and speculators. Universities aren’t about education; they’re about turning young people into lifelong debtors. Long-term care facilities aren’t about care; they’re about draining our elders in the last years of life and real estate plays. Many news sites aren’t about news; they’re about tricking us into clicking on autoplaying ads and advertorials that eat up the bottom half of nearly every site. Nothing is as it seems. This kind of predatory, extractive capitalism necessarily breeds mistrust and paranoia. In this context, it’s not surprising that QAnon, a conspiracy theory that tells of elites harvesting the young for their lifeblood (adrenochrome), has gone viral. Elites are sucking us dry—our money, our labor, our time, our data. So dry that large parts of our planet are beginning to spontaneously combust. The Davos elite aren’t eating our children, but they are eating our children’s futures, and that is plenty bad. QAnon believers imagine secret tunnels underneath pizza parlors and Central Park, the better to traffic children. This is fantasy, but there are tunnels—literal Shadow Lands—under some major cities, and they do house and hide the poor, the sick, the drug-dependent, the discarded. Under the flashing lights of Las Vegas, hundreds or even thousands of people really do live in a sprawling network of storm tunnels.

But she’s experiencing as much rage as the platform on which her consciousness is being modeled, or simulated she thinks darkly, is allowing her to undergo. She’s sure she should be a lot angrier. … There is some unknowable number of her running on some substrate or another and the one that is most compliant will be chosen as the best her, to be carried forward to the next leg of this awful, brutal adventure, while the rest are snuffed out, overwritten, killed or at best archived. This should make her madder. It doesn’t. That fact that it doesn’t make her madder, also should make her madder. It doesn’t. And this should make her so bloody mad that she spontaneously combusts. It doesn’t.

But she’s experiencing as much rage as the platform on which her consciousness is being modeled, or simulated she thinks darkly, is allowing her to undergo. She’s sure she should be a lot angrier. … There is some unknowable number of her running on some substrate or another and the one that is most compliant will be chosen as the best her, to be carried forward to the next leg of this awful, brutal adventure, while the rest are snuffed out, overwritten, killed or at best archived. This should make her madder. It doesn’t. That fact that it doesn’t make her madder, also should make her madder. It doesn’t. And this should make her so bloody mad that she spontaneously combusts. It doesn’t. … The only perameret she cares about, how angry can she get, has already been established: not enough, and she os not going to play along. [Imagine a narrator depicting a Hue vociferously, as well as hopping mad and defiant] “Look, I already know I am not the most pliant instant of me youre runnin. I can’t be. So up yours. I’m dead al;ready. I was dead wehen my viscious scorpion of a motgherchopped the top of my head off and schooped out my brains! … some\wher you found the shapeliest version of me that could be plausibly that could be said to have any continuity with my identity and that one is going to survivv. So fine, I’m dead. Kill me already. I don’t care anymore.” “Actrually, you’re the best candidate instance presently running.” It takes Hugh a long moment to work this all out. “You mean that the other ones are more obstreperous than me? … Unbelievable. What did the rest do?” “Of the 2% that did not [self conbust], the preponderance are catatonic.” Catatonic. She sniffs. How unimaginative. She can do better.

And, while administrators at the Wilson Metals Lab might not allow students to create trimethylaluminum, this exotic metal really is pyrophoric (spontaneously combusts).

Her questing finger moved to trace the very first task. This one, at least, she had accomplished: 1. Move out. She’d been living independently—really independently, budgeting and food shopping and all sorts—for five weeks now, and she had yet to spontaneously combust. Her parents were astonished, her sisters were delighted, Gigi was yodeling “I told you so!” to all and sundry, et cetera. It was very satisfying. Less satisfying were the five unachieved tasks written beneath it. 2. Enjoy a drunken night out. 3. Ride a motorbike. 4. Go camping. 5. Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex. 6. Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage. And then there was the very last task, one she’d checked off with alarming swiftness. 7. Do something bad.

In the beginning, there was no pattern to the sacrifice, merely one more thing to clean up after a long, hard day—no reason to believe that I’d brought this upon myself. (Repent)

About an hour outside of Chicago, as you drive north toward Wisconsin, there is a man sitting in the basement of an old farmhouse, wringing his pale, white hands. In fact, his entire nude body is covered in a white dust, a powder, a singular tear running down his right cheek. His overweight body hangs in folds over the edges of his frame, the tiny, brown stool straining under the weight. There is a singular light bulb overheard, and it is doing a poor job illuminating the cold concrete, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. (Clown Face)

When the red sea of rage washes over me, I picture a house on a hill, far away from the rest of the world, a band of oak trees around it, full of greenery, a singular whisper of smoke drifting up into the sky—a place where nobody will get hurt. It’s where I like to go, my safe place, that house on the hill, my skull vibrating with dark thoughts. (Battle Not With Monsters)

Down the river from the struggling village, a tiny house sat at the edge of a massive forest, shrouded in the shadows of oak, pine, and flowering dogwood. There wasn’t much on this farm, the land hard and difficult to till, but it’s all they had. They grew potatoes, the tubers somehow able to survive, the father a scowling presence in all of his height and bluster; the mother always in another room, busy with anything else; the boy forever expanding the hole that grew inside his chest. (Hiraeth)

I’d been trying to find myself for what seemed like my whole life. Then a dark fate found me instead. I summoned something and drew its gaze down upon me. This is how the suffering began. (Nodus Tollens)

The family heard that the meteor shower would be visible from the cornfields of northern Illinois, just twenty minutes away from their sedentary suburban bliss, but Robert had been sleepless for weeks already, images flickering across his dreams—shadows and voices, a burning sensation running all the way to his core. They were mother and father, sister and brother—nothing special, rows of houses the same, but in blue, or yellow, or brick. But for the boy, half of a set of twins, all the magic and wonder rested in his cells—the darkness and vengeance in his sister, Rebecca. So as they snuffed out the lights of the family sedan, hand in hand down a dirt path the boy had mapped out, trust so easy to come by in this family—the girl sparked danger in her squinting eyes, as the boy’s ever widened to the stars, and possibility. Fresh cut grass lingered under buzzing power lines that disappeared as they stretched out to the horizon, a moist smell ripe with cleanliness and godliness—a hint of something sour underneath. The girl grinned as the rest held their noses, so eager she was to embrace death. (How Not to Come Undone)

The first time they come to measure my son, he is only eleven years old. (From Within)

A tiny heart floats in a yellowing liquid, somehow still beating. Next to it, a bowl filled with Yoyos, the strings dirty, crusted with brown stains, a meaty smell lifting off of the faded toys. In a large glass mason jar there is nothing but hair—long blonde strands, several puffs of dark, curly tightness, and brown clippings in a number of lengths, all mixed together. (The Caged Bird Sings in a Darkness of Its Own Creation)

There was a time in the beginning when I too questioned the plan—staring out over the deadlands, the wastelands, at the dry, desert landscape, the hellfires that burned over the horizon, the masses growing in number, filling in one valley after another. The way the earth cracked open, strange appendages and tentacles spooling out of the steaming cracks. The forests at the edge of the mountains spilling creatures on four legs, humping and galloping over the foliage, and into the high grasses as the growth turned into spoil. And up over the range lurked flying beasts with cracked, leathery wings—thick purple veins running through the expanding, unfurling flesh—elongated skulls holding back rows of sharp teeth, chittering in the settling gloam. Below the hills, pools of water, sometimes blue, but more likely a mossy green, a dark scum, filled with gelatinous blobs, covered with spiky hairs, a collection of yellowing eyes atop what might have been considered some kind of head. And snapping at my own heels, the furry creatures with mottled, diseased skin revealed in chunks, snouts exposed to show the fractured, bony skulls beneath it all, long, slavering tongues distending, lapping at the foul air around us. (In His House)

If you keep staring at me like that, I’m going to spontaneously combust.

His words and not-so-quiet whispers are around me like shards of glass that glint and cut. Fragments of thoughts. Ignorant banal ones. Hyde is the master of dumb nicknames and comes up with dreadful puns, and I remember what he said as recently as last month when a group of us met at the Cambridge watering hole Paddy’s to toast Pete Marino’s birthday. Hyde insisted on buying me a round, on treating me to a stiff drink, maybe a Bloody Mary or a Sudden Death or a Spontaneous Combustion

I’d probably spontaneously combust if he ever touched me…

But I wondered if you could come and help me with something first, please.” “Is it an important something?” Janossi said. “Because I am actually quite busy.” “Spontaneous human combustion?” “I’ll get my coat.

Spontaneous combustion due to sexual frustration was not the way he planned to die, but right now, it was a serious possibility.

I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you,” he murmured. “It’s all I can think about, and you’re so close but nowhere near close enough.” Oh boy. “Spontaneous combustion is a thing, I’ll have you know,” I said, my voice much breathier than I’d intended. “I’m very close to ignition, so if you have no intention of taming this fire, I might suggest you stop.

question to give shape to your practice is this: What could I do for twenty-four hours that would fill my soul with a deep, throbbing joy? That would make me spontaneously combust with wonder, awe, gratitude, and praise?

I have anxiety, a real honest-to-God problem with it, and I have let the fear of it and the fear of my sister’s past rule me for too long. I was so wrong to push you away because I was terrified. And I have to be honest with you and say that I am still extremely terrified. I am so terrified and anxious that I’m honestly sort of shocked I haven’t spontaneously combusted right

I think I’m going to spontaneously combust if someone doesn’t touch me soon.

“Does your heart implode into an infinite care for your other?” “Does it explode into a million stars?” “Do you feel warm and hold the desire to harbor?” “Would you fly the biggest plane into war?” “Could you change the direction of the starboard?” “If all you understood could immediately be over?” “The dark blue sky is infinite and fast forward.” “How much do you want to keep him safe from harm?” “Would you cut the wires knowingly to disable a bomb?” “To which or what does your sun revolve?” “What do you call your world?” “How many of its problems would you willingly solve?” “How many flags of pride for him will you unfurl?” “How big is your once broken vestige?” “Can you heal from your fleshwounds?” “To carry him on and on, even covered in scars?” “To be shot for the only, To be the carrier and keep it going.” “Even when the sound of every blackhole in space roars?” “Can you question your unholy gods in the name of love?” “Can you hold on even when you can see the reaper settling in?” “Can you curse those who fly far up and above?” “Would your golden soul settle to make due and amend?” “The river of euphrates flows over the globe.” “White clouds, rainfall coming down, droplets from the overdome.” “Are you to agree that you can set fire and land in the aerodrome?” “Even when the shooting rocks from millions of miles away decay your airspace?” “Would you tense up your strings and hold an angry face.” “One that circles around back to the care you have to display?” “How much can you love one person?” “How instantaneous, like spontaneous combustion.” “Can you see why you care this much in their eyes?” “Can you see the water fall from the skies?” “Can you see the sun rising to revolve around them once more?” “Can you see the falls from the cliff ledges and the birds?” “Can you foresee what the future has in store?” “Every story has only one narrator, Every view sought through two eyes.” “Your care, your love for him is not a disguise.” “It is a ground shaking thing to feel, you fly.” “The tremors, the earth-shattering quakes under the plates.” “You can only care anymore, no longer do you despise.” “All the angry lines are gone from the sands of time.” “Can you wonder, can you tell anyone or even explain why?” “Can you hold true for the next million years, Right by his side?” “Can you lose your fears to continue to try?” “Jump a million worlds, fall a million skies.” “Infinite voids, infinite times.” “For one world’s sunrise.

Spontaneous human combustion, or catacausis ebriosus,’” began Craig, “‘is one of the baffling human scientific mysteries. Indeed, there can be no doubt but that individuals have in some strange and inexplicable manner caught fire and been partially or almost wholly consumed.

things went quickly awry. Thermonuclear bombs were still not well understood and the weapon, code-named CASTLE BRAVO, turned out to be three times more powerful than expected, a total of some 15 megatons. A four-mile-wide fireball engulfed everything around ground zero in under a second. Birds spontaneously combusted in the sky, and small animals as far away as 345 miles were found to have suffered retinal burns from the nuclear flash. Poisonous radioactivity ultimately covered an area nearly the size of New Jersey,

We’re twins, Sadie and me. No, we’re two molecules who act on each other. Sometimes we make a beautiful compound; today, we’re spontaneously combusting.

Kane wanted Avery, wanted to do exactly what he suggested, but it was a bad idea. He fought emotions he shouldn't feel. Kane attempted to make his escape, sliding first to the right, only to find Avery had caged him in. Instinctively, he turned to the left. He had to get out from under this seductive assault or he was going to spontaneously combust. Avery blocked his escape with his left arm, keeping him right there—stuck between the bottles of wine and Avery's hard body with his brain too stunned to think.

I know the Blue Rose Task Force is charged with the investigation of matters that would make most average citizens—or the world’s most expert neurophysicists, for that matter—flee from the room with their hair spontaneously combusting.

Sim put the mug back on the table, by the laptop, blushing so hard she couldn't have been far off spontaneously combusting.

In practice, Bacon’s method doesn’t bother scientists, or most reasonable people, because the chances of being wrong, while present, are usually in a practical sense very small. It is, for example, theoretically possible that chemical processes taking place in your body could cause you to spontaneously combust, but we don’t live our lives worrying about it because the probability is extremely small. That is why math and statistics have become such important parts of science: they quantify the relative probability that a conclusion is true or false.

Modern art is a waste of time. When the zombies show up, you can't worry about art. Art is for people who aren't worried about zombies. Besides zombies and icebergs, there are other things that Soap has been thinking about. Tsunamis, earthquakes, Nazi dentists, killer bees, army ants, black plague, old people, divorce lawyers, sorority girls, Jimmy Carter, giant quids, rabid foxes, strange dogs, new anchors, child actors, fascists, narcissists, psychologists, ax murderers, unrequited love, footnotes, zeppelins, the Holy Ghost, Catholic priests, John Lennon, chemistry teachers, redheaded men with British accents, librarians, spiders, nature books with photographs of spiders in them, darkness, teachers, swimming pools, smart girls, pretty girls, rich girls, angry girls, tall girls, nice girls, girls with superpowers, giant lizards, blind dates who turn out to have narcolepsy, angry monkeys, feminine hygiene commercials, sitcoms about aliens, things under the bed, contact lenses, ninjas, performances artists, mummies, spontaneous combustion, Soap has been afraid of all of these things at one time or another, Ever since he went to prison, he's realized that he doesn't have to be afraid. All he has to do is come up with a plan. Be prepared. It's just like the Boy Scouts, except you have to be even more prepared. You have to prepare for everything that the Boy Scouts didn't prepare you for, which is pretty much everything.

The Shoggoth seemed to be expanding, inflating, a hideous steaming oven of flesh, a spontaneous combustion of sluicing, breathing tissue. It threw out limbs—pink-suckered tentacles and scaly crab claws, the spurred legs of a climbing insect and countless vermiform limbs like immense writhing pale earthworms. Its mass burst open with seeping pustules that were eyes and then mouths howling like hurricane winds. It gushed a river of foul green jelly and sprouted a thousand wavering tendrils that were seamless and transparent like tentacles of glass, then sucked them back in as easily as a man sucks in air.

But it also called for a certain amount of Dexter’s newfound Lily Anne–born compassion, since I could tell that without my help, my sister was going to prove once and for all that there really was something to the idea of spontaneous combustion.

He covered her hands with his. "Why the hurry?" "Seriously?" She stared at him, her jaw dropping. "I'm on fire! If we wait one more minute, I'm certain the sheets will spontaneously combust. I won't be held responsible if your house burns down because you wanted to waste time on foreplay.

His dimples should come with an advisory label: Will cause hearts to flutter and panties to spontaneously combust.

By force-marching his exhausted men through the unknown, rain-swept wilderness of the German-infested Teutoburg Forest, this guy had just made a brain-explodingly boneheaded mistake so amazing in its incompetence that it makes the Roman consuls at Cannae look like a conjoined triplet made out of Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, and that dude from Total Recall who had the baby coming out of his stomach. In terms of career moves, marching three legions into the Teutoberg was the Classical Age equivalent of coauthoring an academic paper with the Unabomber or asking Charles Manson to write you a letter of recommendation for law school. Unsurprisingly, this came back to bite him in the ass. We don’t know exactly how many Germans were hiding in the woods, watching the column of imperial invaders trudge past. The Germans didn’t bother to write anything down more detailed than “killed sum d00ds 2day lulz,” and the only Romans who managed to run screaming out of this forest alive were the ones who knew better than to sit there and try to count how many GWAR fans were currently trying to brutally dismember them with axes. Let’s just say it was probably a crapload, and that when these long-haired death metal freaks unleashed a bloodcurdling shout and started charging through the forest like a bunch of gigantic mutant Ewok-Wookies ambushing the Imperial Stormtroopers on the Forest Moon of Endor it wasn’t exactly the sort of hilarious laugh riot you might see in an animated GIF involving unicorns, rainbows, and cartoon kitties with Pop-Tarts where their bodies are supposed to be. Bellowing like madmen, these balls-out, frothing-at-the-mouth, beer-swilling sausage fiends went Leeroy Jenkins toward the enemy, blitzkrieging out of the woods from every side seemingly at the same time, their ferociousness magnified not only by their savage blood rage, but by the fact that some of the dudes had taken to painting their entire bodies black with mud to help them hide in the dark forest like how Schwarzenegger hid from the Predator’s infrared vision. It was so damned terrifying that it took every ounce of Roman discipline to not simply spontaneously combust into blood vapor on the spot.

Leo kept swatting his own legs, checking for signs that his pants were on fire. He wasn’t steaming anymore, but the incident on the ice bridge had really freaked Jason out. Leo hadn’t seemed to realize that he had smoke coming out his ears and flames dancing through his hair. If Leo started spontaneously combusting every time he got excited, they were going to have a tough time taking him anywhere. Jason imagined trying to get food at a restaurant. I’ll have a cheeseburger and—Ahhh! My friend’s on fire! Get me a bucket!

I want him to look at me like it physically hurts him not to be touching me.” “Jaxon doesn’t look at me like that.” I’m beginning to think it’s how I look at him, though. Macy snorts. “Baby, if that boy wanted you any more, he would spontaneously combust.

He looked very hot. Hotter than ever. It was a wonder the bed didn’t spontaneously combust, he was that hot.

Spontaneous Combustion. Or Detonitis, for short.

What is, perhaps, most frustrating about Theory is that it tends to get literally every issue it’s primarily concerned with backwards, largely due to its rejection of human nature, science, and liberalism. It allots social significance to racial categories, which inflames racism. It attempts to depict categories of sex, gender, and sexuality as mere social constructions, which undermines the fact that people often accept sexual minorities because they recognize that sexual expression varies naturally. It depicts the East as the opposite of the West and thus perpetuates the very Orientalism it seeks to unmake. Theory is highly likely to spontaneously combust at some point, but it could cause a lot of human suffering and societal damage before it does. The institutions it attacks before it collapses will lose much of their prestige and influence, and they may not survive.

I believe in God,” says my nan, in a way that makes the idea of an omnipotent, unifying frequency of energy manifesting matter from pure consciousness sound like a chore. An unnecessary chore at that, like cleaning under the fridge. I tell her, plucky little seven-year-old that I was, that I don’t. This pisses her off. Her faith in God is not robust enough to withstand the casual blasphemy of an agnostic tot. “Who do you think made the world, then?” I remember her demanding as fiercely as Jeremy Paxman would later insist I provide an instant global infrastructure for a post-revolutionary utopia. “Builders,” I said, thinking on my feet. This flummoxed her and put her in a bad mood for the rest of the walk. If she’d hit back with “What about construction at a planetary or galactic level?” she’d’ve had me on the ropes. At that age I wouldn’t’ve been able to riposte with “an advanced species of extraterrestrials who we have been mistakenly ascribing divine attributes to due to our own technological limitations” or “a spontaneous cosmic combustion that contained at its genesis the code for all subsequent astronomical, chemical, and biological evolution.” I probably would’ve just cried. Anyway, I’m supposed to be explaining the power of forgiveness, not gloating about a conflict in the early eighties in which I fared well against an old lady. Since getting clean from drugs and alcohol I have been taught that I played a part in the manufacture of all the negative beliefs and experiences from my past and I certainly play a part in their maintenance. I now look at my nan in another way. As a human being just like me, trying to cope with her own flaws and challenges. Fearful of what would become of her sick daughter, confused by the grandchild born of a match that she was averse to. Alone and approaching the end of her life, with regret and lacking a functioning system of guidance and comfort. Trying her best. Taking on the responsibility of an unusual little boy with glib, atheistic tendencies, she still behaved dutifully. Perhaps this very conversation sparked in me the spirit of metaphysical inquiry that has led to the faith in God I now have.

You want your boyfriend to look at you like he’s an arrogant prick used to getting his own way?” “Yeah, he pretty much does that already,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “I want him to look at me like it physically hurts him not to be touching me.” “Jaxon doesn’t look at me like that.” I’m beginning to think it’s how I look at him, though. Macy snorts. “Baby, if that boy wanted you any more, he would spontaneously combust.

Imagine what it’ll feel like when we kiss.” Looking at my mouth, he moistens his lips. “I’m starting to wonder if that might be a bad idea. Have you heard of those people who randomly explode into flames?” “Spontaneous human combustion,” he says, still staring at my mouth. “Yes. I’m the type of person that could happen to.” Slowly, James leans forward and lowers his head. He runs the tip of his nose along my jaw, then whispers into my ear, “I’ll have to be careful, then, won’t I?

I remember Christmas morning 1987 when I tore the wrapping paper off of several Dragonlance books—books that I swore to my dad weren’t the same as Dungeons & Dragons games, though it turned out they were. Almost exactly the same, in fact, but in book form. Even more startling, I didn’t turn into a devil-worshipping delinquent, nor did the books spontaneously combust on the holy ground of the church parsonage.

notice about the charge that would be levied for cleaning should a guest smoke (guests who spontaneously combusted would, one assumes, not be asked to pay).

Dublin did look great in the sunshine, although she supposed everywhere did. The temperature must have been nearly 30 degrees Celsius, nobody with Irish skin could stay out in it for more than ten minutes unprotected without risking spontaneous combustion.

It wasn’t long ago that I left the CIA and DC, moved to Sinful, adopted a cat, quit my job, acquired a boyfriend, and for Christ’s sake, I just wore a sequined dress and a tiara on a parade float. If there is any more change in my life, I might spontaneously combust.

What if I spontaneously self-combust?’ ‘Darcys don’t self-combust.

Are you going to make your move?” Alek asks. I shake my head, my eyes never leaving the woman. “Not yet. I’m letting things build between us and waiting for the right moment.” “You let it build any longer, and the girl is going to spontaneously combust,” Alek chuckles.

Never spontaneously combust alone, or without a bag of marshmallows nearby.

You’re telling me you’re not worried about your daughter hanging around with six boys with dubious reputations? And dating one of them who looks at your daughter with…that look?” My brow creased. “What look?” “Oh, please,” Aunt M scoffed. “That look. And not to mention that smile. Hungry,” she growled the word, “and hot enough to make a nun’s panties spontaneously combust.

The time will come when the Universe calls it a draw, and our planet, along with most of its living forms, will cease to exist. This existential event may happen a few years from now, a few hundred years from, a few thousand years from now, or a few billion years from now. No one really knows, when exactly. What we do know is that whatever causes a reset of our planet, will happen in a spontaneous combustion existential event.

As I watched, he stirred, and the dark blankets fell away a little, exposing part of his chest. I sat frozen, barely daring to breathe. The bespelled part of me wanted to climb into bed beside him, but the rest of me wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible before either he woke up, or I spontaneously combusted.

I'm still kind of a mess. But I think we all are. No one's got it all together. I don't think you ever do get it totally together. Probably if you did manage to do it you'd spontaneously combust. I think that's a law of nature. If you ever manage to become perfect, you have to die instantly before you ruin things for everyone else.

Spontaneous combustion would be easier because it would let me know I blew it... This feels more dangerous, like erosion. And you don't really notice erosion until it's wiped out an embankment or something. And then it's too late.

In 1883, scientist Ignatius Donnelly made a compelling argument postulating that all of the fires in the area that night were caused by a meteor shower created when Biela’s Comet lost its tail.  In defending his theory, he wrote, “At that hour, half past nine o'clock in the evening, at apparently the same moment, at points hundreds of miles apart, in three different States, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois, fires of the most peculiar and devastating kind broke out, so far as we know, by spontaneous combustion.  In Wisconsin, on its eastern borders, in a heavily timbered country, near Lake Michigan, a region embracing four hundred square miles, extending north from Brown County, and containing Peshtigo, Manistee, Holland, and numerous villages on the shores of Green Bay, was swept bare by an absolute whirlwind of flame. There were seven hundred and fifty people killed outright, besides great numbers of the wounded, maimed, and burned, who died afterward. More than three million dollars' worth of property was destroyed.

Leo kept swatting his own legs, checking for signs that his pants were on fire. He wasn’t steaming anymore, but the incident on the ice bridge had really freaked Jason out. Leo hadn’t seemed to realize that he had smoke coming out his ears and flames dancing through his hair. If Leo started spontaneously combusting every time he got excited, they were going to have a tough time taking him anywhere. Jason imagined trying to get food at a restaurant. I’ll have a cheeseburger and—Ahhh! My friend’s on fire! Get me a bucket!

I’m still going to move them out of my wanigan, but I’ll give you odds two-to-one that after they move out there’s going to be spontaneous combustion.

The lie was so blatant his coveralls should have spontaneously combusted.

The truancy officer had become well known at the Green house since Nanny Piggins had become their nanny. Nanny Piggins did not often pull the children out of school. But when she did, it was always for blatantly illegitimate reasons. Like the time she burst into Headmaster Pimplestock’s office at two o’clock in the afternoon insisting that the children had to come home instantly because their aunt had just died of spontaneous combustion. The headmaster dutifully sent for the children and packed them off with his heartfelt condolences. Then later that day, he saw Michael, Samantha, and Derrick on the television, cheering loudly at the horse races. Ever since then the truancy officer had been a regular visitor.

One drawback to living in a medical research town is that they’re paranoid about health, both physical and mental. The adults get off easy. Not the kids. Sneeze twice in a row and the teacher calls the school nurse. Drop out of a sport or let your grades fall and you’re whisked off to Dr. Fodor’s couch. They especially monitor the teens, as if hormonal surges could make us spontaneously combust at any moment.

Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.” – Arnold H. Glasow

... the tilting of an eyebrow. This was too obscure a hieroglyphic for the Vicar to decipher, no matter how Miss Armstrong concentrated the pure fire of her being in the muscles of her forehead. One day she would self-immolate... Spontaneous combustion caused by an eyebrow left to smolder a moment too long.

At the subway station you wait fifteen minutes on the platform for a train. Finally a local, enervated by graffiti, shuffles into the station. You get a seat and hoist a copy of the New York Post. The Post is the most shameful of your several addictions. You hate to support this kind of trash with your thirty cents, but you are a secret fan of Killer Bees, Hero Cops, Sex Fiends, Lottery Winners, Teenage Terrorists, Liz Taylor, Tough Tots, Sicko Creeps, Living Nightmares, Life on Other Planets, Spontaneous Human Combustion, Miracle Diets and Coma Babies.

I'm not even sure what would happen if one of us mated with a werekin or a Fae or something, which set of DNA would win out. Who knows? I'm sure Nana would say we'd spontaneously combust." Quinn didn't seem to find that amusing. He scowled. "I'm sure nothing so drastic would happen. I'll bet it would be perfectly safe for both of u—for both parties.

Now then,” Falco started as he tucked the canvases back beneath the long table. “Have I proven myself, Signorina Cassandra? May I paint you?” Cass looked down at her long legs protruding from the ruffled skirt. She willed back the images of Aunt Agnese and Luca that threatened to overwhelm her. “You’re not going to display it, are you?” she asked. “I thought I’d hang it by the entrance to the Grand Canal. Call it Signorina Cassandra Caravello in Her Undergarments. What do you think?” “Very funny.” “I thought so.” Falco dragged the wooden stool and easel to the center of the room. He gestured for Cass to take her place on the divan. “Please.” He pulled a pair of lamps close, murmuring something about the insufficient lighting. “Under normal circumstances,” Falco said, “I would ask you to sit during the daytime. It’s the only way to get a clear picture. But it isn’t often I have the place to myself.” He grinned. “And you are certainly not a normal circumstance.” Cass felt herself blushing; she was sure he would have to paint her complexion a mottled red. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said. “Right now it looks as though you’re sitting on a pincushion.” Cass tried a new pose and Falco laughed. “Let me,” he said, and, reaching out, set about readjusting her. He gently eased her onto her left hip, letting the right leg fall forward in front of her. He pulled part of her hair over her shoulder so it twisted and curled around her neck. Cass sipped her drink nervously, hoping the alcohol might relax her. Each of Falco’s touches generated a tiny bolt of lightning inside her. The charge was starting to build up to dangerous levels. “Are your legs cold?” Falco asked. Cass managed to choke out a no. Her whole body was racing with heat, and she felt about two touches away from spontaneous combustion. She was seized by a fleeting impulse to run away; at the same time, she wished he would touch her forever. The costume, the posing, the mysterious alcohol that was dissolving her inhibitions. Cass felt wild and alive, even more so than she had the night they went to the brothels. That night she had been someone else, but tonight she was posing as herself, and she loved it.

Her whole body was racing with heat, and she felt about two touches away from spontaneous combustion. She was seized by a fleeting impulse to run away; at the same time, she wished he would touch her forever. The costume, the posing, the mysterious alcohol that was dissolving her inhibitions. Cass felt wild and alive, even more so than she had the night they went to the brothels. That night she had been someone else, but tonight she was posing as herself, and she loved it. Falco stepped back to consider his work. “Almost perfect.” “Almost?” Cass pretended to pout. “I know.” Falco rooted around in the armoire and returned with something folded inside his hand. He held it up for Cass to see--a necklace made of shining amethyst. It reminded her of something, but she wasn’t sure what. Probably one of Mada’s thousand necklaces. That girl had more jewelry than the Doge’s entire family. Cass shivered as Falco clasped the necklace around her throat. The stones felt like ice against her neck. “All right. How about a demure look? A stretch for you, I know.” Cass widened her eyes and pursed her lips, just slightly. She tilted her head to the left. Falco shook his head. “You look like you’ve swallowed a bee. Forget shy. Let’s try something that comes a little more naturally. How about disdain?” Her eyebrows instantly went up. “I am not disdainful!” “Perfect.” He downed the rest of his muddy liquor. His brush began to flow across the canvas. Cass felt a charge of excitement, but tried her best not to smile. As she held her position, Falco painted in frantic bursts, pausing occasionally to move the lamps or adjust ringlets of her damp hair. Each time he stopped, she would beg to see the progress and he would shake his head and tell her she had to wait.

I can’t explain about her as I might spontaneously combust from mortification and that won’t be fun for anyone here.’ As an afterthought, she added, ‘And if I weren’t to spontaneously combust, I’d have to go into deep hibernation, and no one would see me ever again.

I marveled that he hadn't spontaneously combusted.

Do you understand that the entire Development department will spontaneously combust if their Gala honoree doesn’t appear on time?” She smiles at me brightly.

No commentary?” he asked, sinking to his knees. “I’m disappointed.” “I’m too busy enjoying the view.” I risked a glance down, expecting to see the same obnoxious smirk his guard had worn, but for once, Luther looked as flustered as I felt. If I didn’t feel like my skin was about to spontaneously combust, I might even have enjoyed watching him squirm. And on his knees, no less.

Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. D,

Then he remembered the Zeus cabin at Camp Half-Blood—that tiny little alcove Thalia had used as a bunk, out of sight from the glowering statue of the sky god. Their dad wasn’t much of a bargain, either. Jason understood why Thalia had renounced that part of her life too, but he was still resentful. He couldn’t be so lucky. He was left holding the bag—literally. The golden backpack of winds was strapped over his shoulders. The closer they got to Aeolus’s palace, the heavier the bag got. The winds struggled, rumbling and bumping around. The only one who seemed in a good mood was Coach Hedge. He kept bounding up the slippery staircase and trotting back down. “Come on, cupcakes! Only a few thousand more steps!” As they climbed, Leo and Piper left Jason in his silence. Maybe they could sense his bad mood. Piper kept glancing back, worried, as if he were the one who’d almost died of hypothermia rather than she. Or maybe she was thinking about Thalia’s idea. They’d told her what Thalia had said on the bridge—how they could save both her dad and Hera—but Jason didn’t really understand how they were going to do that, and he wasn’t sure if the possibility had made Piper more hopeful or just more anxious. Leo kept swatting his own legs, checking for signs that his pants were on fire. He wasn’t steaming anymore, but the incident on the ice bridge had really freaked Jason out. Leo hadn’t seemed to realize that he had smoke coming out his ears and flames dancing through his hair. If Leo started spontaneously combusting every time he got excited, they were going to have a tough

More like, if I don’t touch myself right now, immediately, I might spontaneously combust. And if the alien touches me there, I might also spontaneously combust. I’ll put the come in combust.

Yep. I can handle this. Who can’t handle a little problem like a fucking corpse propped up on the altar like some macabre puppet in front of two thousand people? I am totally fine. Toh-tah-lee. I think I’m going to throw up. Or faint. Or spontaneously combust. What the hell is going on? Why did they bring him out?

It got to be a tradition: we set fires when we're happy, we set fires when we're not, we set fires when we've got nothin' better to do. It got so the city itself stepped in. It burns itself down. Houses combust spontaneously, entire blocks go up in flames at our city's will.

If Leo started spontaneously combusting every time he got excited, they were going to have a tough time taking him anywhere.

And aren’t you the one who was just warning me to stay as far away from Jaxon as I could get?” “Yeah, but that was before.” “Before what?” I demand. “Before I saw how he looks at you.” She closes her eyes and makes a sound very close to the one she made when Jaxon smiled at her. “I wish Cam would look at me like that.” “You want your boyfriend to look at you like he’s an arrogant prick used to getting his own way?” “Yeah, he pretty much does that already,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “I want him to look at me like it physically hurts him not to be touching me.” “Jaxon doesn’t look at me like that.” I’m beginning to think it’s how I look at him, though. Macy snorts. “Baby, if that boy wanted you any more, he would spontaneously combust.

Language, too, forces the air from the lungs. Beyond the high walls and barbed wire and checkpoints that pen this place, there is the empire. And the empire as well is cocooned inside its own fortress of language-a language through the prism of which buildings are never destroyed but rather spontaneously combust, in which blasts come and go like Chinooks over the mountain, and people are killed as though to be killed is the only natural and rightful ordering of their existence.

Believe it or not, all of the science in this book is theoretically possible. Theoretically being that favourite word of fiction writers everywhere, given how it stretches like mozzarella to cover our arses. To save you googling it: pistachios do spontaneously combust, and Holmes’s famous case would indeed be more like The Hound of the Barbecues. The rest is . . . well . . . theoretical.

The Invisible Writer (Sonnet 2654) When I unveil a new book cover, you'd naturally assume that I know what I'm gonna write, but let me tell you a secret, in strictest confidence - I don't, I never have any clue what my next book is going to be about - by dropping the cover I just make an appointment, with some invisible force inside, and when the time comes, the book starts pouring on its own, all I do is take dictation. You see, I hate writing from thought, I used to, the first two years, but then I got introduced to the actual writer within, who does not need outside sources, because outside sources, academic or religious, are too backward and downright shortsighted - which is why, things written from thought are too dull for my taste, I may accept basic data, but never thought, not even my own - for the canon to be magical it has to be born of spontaneous combustion, verse by verse, manuscript by manuscript - otherwise it's not Naskar.