I was burnt in a kitchen fire on the 28th February this year.
I`ve healed quicker then "they" say I should have, physically maybe...

Four days prior to the burning I`d had an urge to paint, so paint I did. My two best paintings in fact.
The first was of Kali emerging from fire, absolutely beautiful in Warrior mode. Around the edges of her frame I`d painted the words "Death", "Destruction" and "Rebirth".
The second was of a crow perched above but also being consumed by flames. Across that one I`d painted Hecates name, around the edges I painted "Oh Great Mother".

I`d set up a Fire Altar with the one of Kali, in my bedroom, decorated it with skulls and kept the candles burning.
I`d hung Hecate facing the front door as protection.
Looking back now, I had alot of self installed protection around me, in my bedroom especially, the room I was soon to spend the next 3 months of my life hostage in.
I`d stuck a tree branch which was shaped as a protection symbol, on my wall, I had each of my Goddess cards lined up along my window sill. An Isis crystal above my bed and a rock that I`d painted the protection symbol on guarded my door.
I was preparing for something.
The night of the fire I was working on a timber book cover, burning a Fire Goddess into it infact, for a friend, I finished burning the Goddess, it was 1am.
I took a break, made a coffee, wrote a shopping list for the next day, packed up everything I needed to be mailed in the morning and put them in bags by the front door.
I walked through the house feeling really serene, checked my kids, Dan, Bek and Nat sleeping peacefully in their beds, my boyfriend,Ben had fallen asleep on the lounge waiting for me to finish working.
I lit a candle in every room.

I went back to the Goddess cover, I finished sanding her, I admired her for a while,wondering about the defiant look she had in her eyes, it was 2:30 am.
I suddenly had an insane craving for puppadoms, of all things. I HAD to have them.

I put the Goddess cover on the table and headed off to cook some puppadoms, it took me 5 minutes to find the oil, which seemed to have hidden itself at the back of the cupboard, but I would have searched all night, I WANTED puppadoms!!
I put the oil in a pot, turned up the heat and wandered off to put a quick layer of lacquer on the Goddess cover while the oil heated.
That was my first mistake.
And that`s where my life as I`d known it ended. Never to be the same again.
I wish I had of paid more attention to my thoughts that night.
I wish I`d realised how free I actually was.
I wish I`d known they WERE my last moments as such.
The physical, mental and emotional freedom and strength I`d enjoyed throughout my life.

Physically, Mentally and Emotionally, I was about to be destroyed.

I finished the coat of lacquer, it wouldn`t have taken longer than a minute, fuck it takes 5 minutes for the hotplate to heat up!
I turned toward the kitchen, there was a flashing of red light from the doorway, I had absolutely NO idea what it was, I went into the kitchen, expecting some Divine moment I think, the noise in there was like being at the ocean, it was roaring, deafening. There was a cascade of fire going from the pot straight to the exhaust fan which was directly above the pot, the wall behind the stove was on fire and the ceiling as well.
I grabbed a towel from the laundry, ran back into the kitchen and threw it at the pot.
That was my second mistake.
I didn`t let go of the other end of the towel, so as one would expect, it flicked back at me, now covered in oil and on fire, bringing the pot of oil along with it, which ended up all over me, catching my pyjamas on fire.
I don`t remember exactly what happened then, but I ended up in the loungeroom rolling in a pile of clothes, trying to put myself out, still on fire, hitting myself, not able to make a sound. I stood up and started pulling my clothes off.
I had ONE MOMENT where I`d actually thought I WAS going to die. It was no grandiose moment either, no flashing of my life before my eyes, no glorious bright lights, no tunnels and I certainly wasn`t farting rainbows!
I remember looking at myself, almost as if I were an onlooker, I felt winded and kind of empty, the ONLY thoughts going through my head at that time were "get fucked, this is IT" followed by a resigned "this is just fucked".
I got my pants off, by that time my top was out, I was hurting but I wasn`t, I was seriously out of breath, I tried yelling for Ben to wake up cos the kitchen was still on fire, it came out the same as in those dreams you have where you try to scream but nothing comes out.
By this time smoke had filled the house and the fire alarms were going off. Ben woke up, I told him the kitchen was on fire, I`d been burnt and we had to get out. He took off into the kitchen, I tried to yell at him not to but he disappeared into the smoke. I grabbed the phone off the table and ran up the hallway banging on and falling against the walls. I woke Dan and the girls and we all got outside,except Ben.

As soon as we got outside my legs really started to burn, I got the hose and tried keeping it on myself while I rang for the fire brigade, Ben still wasn`t out, I was trying to be coherant to the operater but I was fucked, I couldn`t think of my street name, and what the fuck WAS the nearest crossroad???
Just as Ben came out and yelled, "It`s out, don`t worry about it", I was about to hang up when I looked down on myself as I got back into the light and said "Oh my God, I need an ambulance, I`ve been burnt".

I passed the phone to Ben, he got thru to the ambulance, Dan grabbed the hose from me and told me to go to the shower NOW, the girls started to lose it.
I waited for Ben to finish with the ambulance, I rang mum and said "You need to come to my house right now, I`ve been burnt, hurry" and hung up.
I walked as calmly as I could back into the house, straight to the shower with my girls in tow, Dan went straight to his room.

I got into the shower and fuck wasn`t it THE best feeling of relief I`d ever felt. It was great

The girls were crying, they`d had a horrible shock,they`re only 9 and 11, they`d been woken up by a hysterical mother, then seen what I hadn`t even looked at yet, my arms and legs were a mess, it was 3 in the morning and their house had nearly burnt down.
I was freaking out about them with smoke inhalation and I didn`t want to go into shock and pass out or something in front of them and scare them even more, so I told them I had to go to hospital for stronger panadol cos I had lots of burns instead of one or two that people usually get.
I must have sounded convincing, they seemed happy with that, I told them to go into their room and shut the door,open the windows and turn the fans on so the smoke didn`t get them.
Ben came in, I asked him for a cigarette and a bong, which calmed me considerably.
I still hadn`t looked at myself properly and really didn`t want to.
I was starting to feel the worst pain I`d ever felt (UP UNTO THAT TIME). My legs and forearms were burning the most.
I started praying to the Goddess for the ambulance to hurry up. It was hard to stay on my feet and besides the burns, I was fucken FREEZING! I started shaking uncontrollably for a few minutes at a time every now and then and I was getting scared.
I didn`t know what was going on and HOW the fuck were they going to fix this shit?
What was going to happen?
WAS I going to fucken die anyway?
COULD this shit kill you?
I started to freak a bit. Mum got there, came into the bathroom with a smile on her face and started saying "What have you done now you silly woman?", her face totally crumbled when she looked into the shower recess. I asked her "Is it bad?", the look in her eyes said it all, so what do I do?
I fucken look.
It was FUCKED. It took me a minute to realise that the black GOO DRIPPING FROM MY ARMS AND DOWN MY LEGS was actually my own burnt skin and flesh. THAT was the most fucked feeling I`ve EVER had. I wanted out. Out of my body, out of everything. I wanted out of the whole situation.
I said to mum that it must look worse than it is, she started crying and went to get me another cigarette.
I could see red and blue lights flashing on the walls, "thank fuck" I thought, the ambulance! I was almost excited. Mum came back in with my cigarette and said it was the fire brigade. Fucked if I know why they turned up, I told them it was out. That annoyed me so much at the time.
I started praying to the Goddess again, casting blue healing lights around myself, telling mum how important it was that I didn`t go into shock, (although I was already in it,by this time I was shaking uncontrollably and continually.) I got mum to wet a towel and put it around my shoulders to try and keep me warm, all the while standing in a freezing shower, babbling on about how important it was that I didn`t go into shock.
Red and blue flashing lights again.
Yay, I get excited, by now I just want to be knocked the fuck out, I`m freezing, I`m tired and I`d like to deal with this later if that`s ok! In come the police, I almost cried.
WHERE the fuck is was the ambulance?!
I started praying to the Goddess again.

Then it occurs to me that once the ambulance arrives, I`ll be leaving the freezing water, great cos I`m cold, not so fucken great cos I don`t remember them having freezing showers in ambulances. This was gunna hurt like fuck.
I started willing the ambulance to go slow until I had some time to figure out how we`d get me to the hospital, (without going into shock of course!)
And as luck would have it, at that very moment I could hear the sirens coming in from the highway.
The ambos came into the bathroom, the chick jumped into the shower with me to check me out, I told her that unless she had enough tranquilisers to kill an elephant, I wasn`t going anywhere, she just smiled and said she`d look after me.

Because my arms were burnt mostly on the inside, where on would put a drip or needle, the outsides of my arms and hands were just fucken yuck, I can`t even describe it but they weren`t getting any needles in anywhere and because I`d spent so long in freezing water, my veins had all constricted, so after careful consideration they decided the best route to administer morphine would be UP MY FUCKING NOSE!
DUDES!
I can`t describe the feeling of that shit, I can`t even think about it, it was FUCKED, so anyway, 4 injections up my nose later, I`m off my fucking head but the pain hasn`t gone away.

Then it`s time to leave the shower, and start the most fucked journey of my life.They wet some sterile sheets and wrapped me in them, my hallway wasn`t wide enough for their bed thing, so I had to walk to the front door, past my girls, trying to hold it together for them and tell them I`d be home tomorrow, that was fucked.
It was actually the only time I almost cried.

By the time I got to the ambulance I felt like I`d been hit with the oil all over again, the sheets wrapped on me had gotten warm and it felt fucked! The pain was crazy.
Ben came in the ambulance with me, mum took the kids home with her, I was pumped full of morphine again up my fucking nose and all I wanted to be was unconscious but that wasn`t happening either.

I started convulsing half way to the hospital, the pain just fucked me.
The dude was breaking saline drip bags onto me, but they were room temperature and just made the burning worse.
This was fucked and I knew it.

Woah, Go Mars in retrograde. Blah.

I hate doing emotions, I really, really do.

They suck, they hurt, and they fucken bite!

So why oh why am I dwelling in the depths of the motherfuckers????????????

COS MARS IS IN FUCKING RETROGRADE IS WHY!

I don`t like it and I`m not enjoying it. I want the Planets to know that. I don`t think they`re playing fair at all.

The material world for me is great, everything`s happening,flat out as usual (once) I get my shit together, plus I follow the planets and jump when I need to jump, duck when I need to duck ya know? More people should pay attention to that shit, they`d have much more control over the world around them.Silly people.

I move back into MY house in 2 weeks!

My ex husband finally decided if I paid half the house payments, I can take possession! It`s good to see he`s not acting like a four year old anymore, it was only his way of dealing with the pain, throwing tantrums `n spiteful shit, but the adult emerged again and we ended up on the same page, so that`s the main thing.

He rang me last night actually, to tell me he has a girlie. He sounded guilty,awkward and incomfortable talking about it, I couldn`t help giggling, he`s so fucking straight, I love seeing him in a spot.

I know, I`m horrible but he HAS been a great source of amusement to me over the years, if nothing else. I wished him well, said I was happy to hear it, what`s she like? what`s she do? All the appropriate questions, so he`s happy, we`re friends in a way, sort of, well kind of but not really cos I don`t like him.

I can`t help it, I just don`t.

BUT the reason I`m going on about it is, it`s finally over. THAT phase, that life, has had its Death. It`s done it`s job, taught its lessons, guided us to where we are and the Fates are done with it, how amazing.

Completely and finally, it has ended, with the buds of new beginnings starting to blossom.

I love that shit.

I swear way too much.

Nat turned 10 on saturday! Her party was much better than Dans! LMAO!

I`ll get back to all of this later, Ive got so much to do, so much to say and so much to write.

I`ve been up for 2 hours, it`s now 6:18 in the morning, I`m goin for a walk!

My head needs clearing or something.

Dunno.

Fuck Mars.

My mind started racing, I had to get him out of here NOW ,before anyone saw him, he`d be killed.

My heart was racing, I was trembling, my vision began to blur, my mouth dry, my world was moving in slow motion.

I looked at Ben, "Get him the fuck out of here" I murmered as he made his way toward Shano. Bambi, who was a close family friend of the girl he`d raped groaned, even she could see the potential hazard.

Not here and for fuck sake not now.

Ben walked over to Shano and said "You`re not welcome here mate" and thumbed to the door. Shano looked confused, but turned to leave. As he was walking out the front door, we hovered back a bit, making sure he did leave, he stopped at the door and started talking to a very big, very gangsta looking dude, the dude looked irrately over Shanos shoulder at Ben and tilted his head for one of his mates to join him.

Fuck this, I was over it.

I stormed over to Shano, who was now accompanied by a girlie about 19 years old, standing by the car they`d turned up in, there was also 2 more people in the car. I said to Shano, "Man, you need to leave, don`t go causing problems, its a fucken kids birthday party". He asked WHY?

I replied "you fucked up with Fredos kid man, he knows, we know, now just fuck off". I`m looking around nervously hoping against all hope that Dan or one of his mates haven`t seen him.

I felt like screaming.

That fucken idiot Shano said to me, " You don`t know my side of the story! She was ok with it"

!!!!!!!WHAT THE FUCK???!!!! SHE WAS 13 YEARS OLD! A BABY!

The shit that did to my head was crazy

, my vision started to blur again, FOR FUCK SAKE WHY CAN`T THEY JUST FUCK OFF?????????
I turned to face my apparent fate, only to see my brother flying thru the air, Ninja style, headed in our general direction screaming "thats`s my sister cunt and this is my nephews party!".

Silence.

A much worse sound than the hum. I wanted the hum back.

Instantly we were surrounded, by this stage Shano and my bro were pushing eachother back and forth, Ben appeared and pulled John away.

Just in time for Dan and his mate to break thru the crowd.

Dans eyes were on fire. I grabbed him by the arms, he was looking around like a wild animal seeking its prey, "where is he?" he demanded, "IS it Shano?".
I tried calming him, "Dan, don`t ok. He knows people here, leave it."

Dan looked even wilder, "IS it Shano?" he yelled at me. "Is it fucken Shano??" he roared as Ben came and grabbed him, holding his arms he said "yeah man, leave it, we`ll sort it later".

 Dan broke away from Ben and ran to the car, with me and Shyla(Dans girlie) hanging from his shirt, Ben close behind.
There was a deep closed circle around the car, Dan got to the car window and tapped on it, now having Ben and John holding him back as well, the circle started to get closer.

 I`m not sure if anyone other than the immediately involved knew what was going on, except for Dans mate, who was standing at the front of the car, as if in a daze, saying and doing nothing.

Dan struggled free and calmly said, "I just wanna tallk to him", everyone let go.

He tapped on the window of the car and said "Shano? man is that you? Oi, open the window, it`s Dan".

The window came down about 4 inches, exactly enough for Dan to get his fist thru, which he did, and punched Shano square in the face.
Everyone grabbed for Dan again, I yelled at the stupid bitch behind the wheel to "JUST GO!", of course she couldn`t, they were surrounded. Dan was struggling and hitting at the car, he broke free again and this time put his fist thru the windscreen.

It was as is someone had raised a green flag, Dans mate snapped out of his daze and started punching and kicking at the car, the girlie finally started the car and reversed into the crowd.
I was hanging off Dan, yelling at everyone to move out of the way.

The crowd starts to part, the car starts to move, Dan yells" NOOOO!!! Fuck him! He raped a fucken 13 year old girl"
The car was lost under the crowd within seconds, yelling and screaming, people were kicking, smashing, punching, and rocking it.

As I`ve said, how they got out of here alive, is beyond me, it really is. The car was literally thrown from my driveway.

I just wanted the hum back *sigh*

My mind was going crazy with the possibilities of what could happen if this amount of people turned ugly, knowing *I* was the one everyone would be turning to in the event of ...lets say... FUCKEN ANYTHING !!!!!!!!!

I`M THE RESPONSIBLE ADULT!!!!!!.....

So, there I was - paranoid, anxiety ridden and plain fucken scared!!!!

WAYYYYYYYYY too many people.
I was in "risk management" mode, assessing every person, conversation and situation for something that might turn to shit. I walked thru the CROWD for 15 minutes before I even spotted Dan at one stage. Fuck there were alot of people.

Oh and you know what? *me* in my infinate wisdom, after seeing the meek 20-30 guests we`d had earlier in the evening had decided that PYJAMAS would be the appropriate attire for this situation, after all I was hardly going to have to interact with them was I?
White pyjamas with little red skulls all over them. How much did I rock.

"Ok" my mind rationalised, "IF things stayed calm, there shouldn`t be a problem, everyone seemed to know eachother, there were small groups congregating in shadows here and there, but mostly people were dancing and having a good time."

All it had to do was stay good.

I went back inside andsat at the table, joined the conversation and again, started to relax.

I`d straightened up by then, too nervous and paranoid to be anything else, I leaned back against Ben sighing, reaching up to put my hands around his neck.
He groaned "You`re fucken kidding me", pushed me aside and got to his feet.
It took me a minute to realise his actions weren`t intended for me, I turned around to see the person they were intended for.

You`ve GOTTO be fucking kidding ME.

Enter Shano.

As the story unfolds, Shano had been like a big bro to one of Dans mates, lived with his family for 6 years, was looked upon as a part of the family, blah, blah. He`d been here once or twice with Dans mate, I didn`t like him, I can pick a crack head a mile away, I can do without that shit around my kid, Dan wasn`t everly fond of him anyway.

 Beside the fact he was 22, I just thought he should have better things to do then hang with a pile of young kids.

Anyway, it came to light a few weeks ago that Shano had raped the 13 year old sister of Dans mate, he made that little girlie do some terrible shit to him. Fucken dog, but anyway...........the boys had spent hours talking about what they`d do to him if they got the chance, none of it pretty and I know now, none of them empty threats.

And you know what, he was standing in my fucken kitchen.

The urge to assume the fetal position and start rocking began to overwhelm me.
This was fucked.

Alllrighty then....where were we? That`s right, it was 6 `oclock Saturday night *shudder*

I`d had a girlfriend turn up for the night, Bambi, we`d JOKED previously that she could help with security, yeah right, like WE`D need it.
Security? Pfft. A pile of 15 year old kids running around, having learnt from last nights mistakes, what could possibly go wrong?

There I go again, asking stupid fucking questions.....

My brother (John) turned up with his girlie, he`d been drinking Rum all day and he was being a fuckwit. A complete fuckwit. What made it even better was the fuckwit gave Dan a bottle of rum for his birthday!!!

Yay.

"Oh well" I resigned, "it`s just one night. *sigh*, it`ll be cool."
They`re all good boys. *insert psychotic eye twitch* Good boys. Yep.

The party was pumping outside, everything seemed ok.

I started to relax, sitting round the dining table with Ben, Bambi, John and his scatterbrained girlie, everyone had a drink, the conversation was flowing, the younger kids were in the loungeroom playing and dancing. Everyone`s cool.

You know what? Things are running so smoothly I might have a bong.

YOu know what else? I`m the greatEST fucking idiot that ever lived.

*nods* believe it.

So I chilled out, kicked back, happy with the turn out for Dan, it turned out to be a nice comfortable crowd, I was drinking my coffee and looking out the window, watching the reflections of the music lights dancing in the trees, it was lovely.

The trees started to get a little brighter in the darkness, the boys must have turned them up or something I thought.

 The trees had started to get alot brighter, I looked a bit harder and started to say "what the fuck.................which got trodden on half way thru by John saying "get fuuucked", accompanied by Ben laughing "check this shit out!".

We were all looking in the same direction, at the same thing, it was like a scene from a gangsta meets the twilight zone movie, there were the shadows of about FIFTY people walking in an ORGANISED group down our driveway, being lit up by the THREE carloads following slowly and ominously behind them, and coming from the opposite direction were my GOOD boys, same formation, same stance, heading to meet them.

I couldn`t do anything but watch, it was fucken crazy. We, the "security", had become stunned observers, nobody spoke at all. I didn`t know if they were all friends, gang  warfare, if they were going to have a shoot out? It looked more the latter to me, I have never in my life seen anything like it.

 The lighting, the atmosphere, it was fucken crazy.

And I was stoned.

Great choices there.

Dan walked to the front of the group and straight into "mafia mania", they recognised/identified eachother and headed back toward the house.
I didn`t realise what the humming was, the music was still playing, but we`d stopped hearing it when the ufo landed in our driveway, but now what was that fucken humming?

Have you ever heard the "people hum"?

 You know, like in the shopping centre, at a concert, places like that, *waves hands in the air*, you know the hum.

It was that same hum.

I looked around, drowning deeper in a wave of anxiety, realising not only was I the eldest one there, I was the fucking parent!!!! I was running the party!

There were 50 million people in my fucking garage, spilling out over my 27 acres, into my home.....

The demand for water was insane, this wasn`t a 15 year olds birthday party, it was like a fucken hidden rave.

I saw a sticker last week, it suddenly became a neon light in my brain, I`d laughed at it when I had first seen it, now it just scared me.

"Don`t hit kids.
No. Seriously. Don`t.
They have guns now."

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuucken GREAT.