Today you’re five and you love matches. You love the way they feel in your hand, the way they smell, and especially, the way they start big, luscious, proudly raging fires that swallow anything and everything that might have the misfortune of residing in their path. When you use your matches to set fire to and destroy a small restaurant, leveling the dreams of a man who spent most of his twenties and thirties setting aside savings and making connections with people in the community and established businessmen to help him make his dream of one day owning a restaurant come true, the man will come to you and tell you he’s not angry - even though you can tell he is, and that he’s been crying - that he knows you’re too young to know better, so he just wants you to promise him that you’ll never play with matches again.
“I promise,” tell him, because this is what you have to do every time you play with matches and some adult decides that he can make you stop, that he has more power over you than the matches, and the fire, that beautiful, ever lovely fire. “I promise to never play with matches again.”
The man will go back to staring at the ashes of his hard work, unaware that if you actually had any intention of following through on your promise, you wouldn’t want to turn six.
Happy You’re Five Day!
