Susumu’s lighter was never wrong. If you asked the old, patchy-bearded man, he would tell you the lighter was Truth itself. Just roll the sparkwheel and the flame will shine green, or yellow, or red, or blue, or any colour you can imagine. Then, Susumu would stare at it for a few moments, and he’d have the perfect advice.
“You have an aptitude for theft,” he once told me. The cap of the lighter went back on, suffocating the cyan flame. The colour meant something, but I didn’t know what.
“I’ve stolen a few things before.” Talking to Susumu felt not just safe, but freeing. “A couple of shirts, a purse… a jar of cookies.” I smiled at the last one.
Susumu nodded. “You can’t escape it, but you can embrace it.”
I nodded back. “I don’t want to escape it.”
The old man look up as if he’d noticed something on the roof, and he grasped the ladder next to him, which he used to climb up to the roof of the pawnshop. He took a few steps away, and then I heard the familiar ring of the sparkwheel again.
Up on the roof, I tried to look as casual as I could. Hands in my pockets, eyes on the floor, shoulders hunched: there was a bit of acting to it.
“Where did you get that lighter from anyway?” I asked.
Susumu lit up a flame and stared at it. He turned back and forth, as if the lighter was a compass. The flame was pure white, and it disappeared under the lid abruptly.
“The lighter is old. Older than human beings. It was crafted by a god, Hephaistos, and it was stolen by Prometheus, who brought it down to human beings.”
I’d heard stories like this before. They did not interest me.
“I asked where you got it from, Susumu.”
Susumu put his thumb on the sparkwheel again, but then lifted it. “Prometheus gave it to me.”
It made me laugh. “You’re a funny man, Susumu. But you’re very wise. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”
Susumu lit up a pink flame and studied it for a few moments before snuffing it out.
“Here, take it.” He tossed the lighter to me and I caught it with both hands, despite the suddenness of the throw.
“Why are you giving it to me?” I asked.
“Because you were going to get it from me anyway. I don’t know how, or when, but I figured that since you’re the next owner, I’d might as well cut the chase.”
I examined the lighter in my hand. Moments ago, I’d been planning how to steal it. “This feels like a responsibility,” I said.
I lit up a flame, this one a fierce and bright blue. Within it, I found the clarity I needed.
Once the flame was gone, I turned to Susumu again, who was looking at the street below now, hands on his waist like it was the end and beginning all rolled into one.
“Thank you, Prometheus,” I said. “I’ll put it to good use.”
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