Burning the (comic) books

A friend of mine, a guy I've known since high school (I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name) did then and still does collect comic books. Let me tell you, if you think Catholicism is a religion, you know nothing about comic book collectors.

Cloyce buys two issues of nearly every major comic book every month. One he reads; one he carefully, oh, so carefully, slips into a hypoallergenic plastic sleeve or some such nonsense, for preservation. Yes, really.

I was talking to old Cloyce awhile back and I told him that when he passes, if I have any say in the matter, we're going to give him one impressive send off. We'll build this raft, see, and we'll lay his dead body upon it. Then we'll push it out into the ocean, westward, as the sun goes down. Then we'll have an archer fire a flaming arrow into it once it's far enough offshore to not be a hazard. You can see the arc of the fiery projectile gracefully heading to the air in the dusk, to descend purposefully on the raft. A sharp yet small puff of flame will set everything aglow. Then his funeral pyre will drift away into the reds, blues, and purples of the sunset.

"Wow," Cloyce responded, kind of caught up in my moment of description. But then he asked, "How will you fuel the fire?"

I answered, "With your comic books."

He began to stutter and stammer. I said, "Don't worry. We'll soak them in gasoline to make sure they ignite and burn thoroughly."

Cloyce hasn't spoken to me since.