The world will burn. Or so my mother says. She's always been a bit... what's the kindest way to phrase this? Off her rocker? This is a woman who sneers down her nose when other families don't contribute cakes to our church's monthly bake sale, and snarls at children when they try and swipe more than a drop of communion wine. She's... difficult.

So when she came home last night, clutching a bunch of those preaching pamphlets she collects like stickers, raving about some new preacher, I thought she'd finally lost it.

Don't get me wrong, she's always been a bit nutty when it comes to all that religious stuff, and growing up under the same roof I learned pretty quickly how to nod a passive agreement. But she's never once talked about another preacher than our brittle Rev. Phelps, who looks like he's held together by spit and spite. So when she slipped off her modest heels and hung her coat up on the rack, chatting non-stop about this new fella, the words just tumbled out of me.

'Have you gone mad?'

'I have not, thank you, Lucile,' she said sharply, nostrils flaring, 'I've been enlightened.'

Uh-oh, I thought, that's one of her buzzwords. She loves throwing words like that about, trying to trump whatever kernel of truth you're clutching and smite it with as much religious fervour as she can muster.

'But,' I said, 'Reverend Phelps-'

'Is a fool,' she said brusquely, 'you saw him last Sunday, he was practically falling asleep at the pulpit. No, it's time this town had some fresh blood.'

I turned my attention back to my dreary cereal, letting her words settle over me like a threadbare blanket. 'Do you even know this new preacher?' I pressed.

'Of course, I do,' my mother snapped, 'and let me tell you, he's a far better conversationalist than you'll ever be, my girl.'

'Didn't mean nothing by it.' I hunch my shoulders, shrinking into the table.

My mother sighs. 'I know you didn't. That's your problem, you know. You never think enough.'

She leaves me with a self-satisfied snort and the creeping realisation that my mother's not right about everything.

I think plenty. Maybe in slower ways than most. But people always underestimate you when you think slow.

This world will burn, my mother says and she's right.

This world will burn because I'm the one who's gonna burn it.