“It was a pleasure to burn” confessed Beatty in his ill lit dingy prison cell. “These books are crazy I tell you… they ought to be banned” he said between breaths.

Beatty was merely seventeen and charged with first degree homicide.He had burned down his father. Well he didn’t want to burn down his dad, he was not completely mad. He just wanted to burn the library and his father happened to be there that evening. “Collateral damage”, Beatty thought and suppressed his smile, “old timer had it coming”. Beatty’s father was the priest at the local church and had lived his entirely by the Book, “… and died too, heh”.

It was cold day in April and Beatty was sweating. He had spent the last night preparing his speech. He knew that he was not going to survive this ordeal. “Better go out in a burst of flame… Just like Dad”. The judge was particularly disinterested. This was the third arson this week and the fourth delinquent juvenile. “What’s the world coming to?” he thought as he ascended the highest position in court. Beatty was summoned and the Book was presented to him. He calmly put his hand over it and nodded.

The judge yawned “You have one chance, speak”.

“I burn books not men. Books create snobs I say. Look at that punk reciting Shakespeare mindlessly “To be or not to be,  A book is a loaded gun. Breach man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won’t stomach them for a minute. Books are against equality. All men should be equal I say. So I burn the books. Like the Holy Spirit I shall cleanse thee. I mean it’s not even original anymore, merely synopses, abridgements and reviews, heh, readers’ Digest. It’s not even literature anymore. Advertisements and movies. Just clicks, snaps, flicks of the eye. It’s disgusting. Fake stories about real men, fake stories about fake men. Fraud! These books fill your head with fantasy and hope. It’s all crap. It make you think you can do anything. There is no hope. And these authors, people pleasers. Goddamn pansies. “Let’s write a book on cats for cat lovers”. What a joke. It’ll stop selling, the dog lovers wouldn’t buy it. Heh. It’s just money talking. Whatever sells is literature now. None of this will survive I tell you, only two cent sex magazines with raunchy photographs and sleaze is what will be left. I’m goddamn telling you. Even that shall fizzle out against them videos.”

The judge was dumbfounded at this rant. Jesus, he thought. They get crazier every day. Life imprisonment in heavy confinement he announced, take this man away.

“You can lock me away now but a time will come.” Beatty sniggered as he was dragged back to his cell.

“You yourself will unleash me upon this world and shall burn in my hell. I am thy father’s spirit, doom’d for a certain term to walk the night, and for the day confined to fast in fires,till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away.”