Where I Burnt to Death (almost)
by Jeremy Chancehttps://w3w.co/name.case.gravy
The link above shows the place where I set myself alight.
I was two years old at the time, barely walking. It is my first memory – standing there and looking up at the tabletop, yes up. My parents were sitting at the table smoking, and I was fascinated by it. My little hand reached up unseen between mum & dad and collected a box of matches, together with their Viscounts.
They both smoked Viscount cigarettes, 40c for a packet of 20.
I gleefully ran down the hall – clutching cigarettes and matches - and plunged into the 3 square meters that the link above captures. Down below the steps my dad had gathered together some dead leaves from the garden…
I lit the leaves with my matches, then leaned over the fire in my flannelette pyjamas, trying to light the cigarette...
***
Why am I telling you this?
Two reasons.
One, because my Posture Daily has recently become a monthly, if that.
One effect of COVID-19 on me – over time – has been to dampen my enthusiasm for writing every day, something I used to accomplish with ease. I decided I needed a kick up the bum to get myself rolling again.
At that moment, I got an invitation from a member of my London Mastermind to join a 30-day writing challenge. Yes! I need this, I thought, and signed up immediately.
The second reason has to do with Alexander's Discovery.
The fire lit up my life and led me on a journey of seeking answers…
***
As I tried to light the cigarette, my pyjamas caught fire and I began screaming and screaming in terror. I don't remember much after that, but my mother told me every day she visited the hospital, I looked weaker.
I lay dying in a ward in Hornsby, having very little treatment.
Mum rang her friends in the Catholic network, and a top-notch doctor from a city hospital scooped me up in an ambulance and had me in his operating room within 15 minutes of arriving at his hospital.
I don't know his name, but he saved my life.
Massive skin drafts across both my legs were undertaken in three major operations over the next few days. My mother prayed, and here I am. Scarred and alive.
The trauma of that time turned me into a seeker.
I was never satisfied with the answers at school and kept having a feeling that there was knowledge in the world that I needed to know. What it was and where I would find it, I didn't know.
My story of the next few weeks follows the places I travelled to find Alexander's Discovery, and how it helped save my life in a very different way.
Jeremy Chance's (sometimes) Daily
Alexander's Discovery v3.0