pyrohomeopathy

[rone]

(I submitted this late last night for Warren Ellis's Fast Fiction Friday stunt.  Yes, it's late, but the pieces finally fit together last night.  This started as a comment in rimrunner's journal.  I edited the version i sent Warren a bit so it would fit under his 200-word limit.)

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The shelves are redolent with the stench of sin.  Smut and lies attract the innocent with twisted pheromones.  Only fire can purify the reek, but i am watched by my enemies, the so-called friends of free information, who have already been perverted by the things that should have never been.

I take each book and rip off the smallest corner from whatever page i open, and put it in my little sack, the one i so carefully prepared.  My watchers do not notice.  More importantly, the books do not notice.  When i am done, i walk outside to await the sunset.

As the fire of the sun comes down on the sullen, soiled earth, i unleash my spell of sympathetic magic.  Those in my church would condemn me as a witch, but i believe i am redeemed by my actions — is using magic for a noble call a mortal sin?  And i have paid my penance; my sack, which i fashioned from my own scrotum... i have sacrificed to ensure the righteousness of my task.  And, as i set those hundreds of little paper corners on fire, each book on its shelf incinerates immediately, instantly.  In the morning, the guardians of filth will find only charred spots where their precious books once where.  And i shall move on to the next library.