It was a Pleasure to Burn

I had a grand vision. Imagine, if you will, a newly harvested wheatfield. Only a handful of scattered grains remain, tossed about by the November wind. In the middle of this field, like an altar in the heart of the world, there is a circle of stones. All around it, dozens of people drink and dance, occasionally spitting mouthfuls of alcohol in the circle. At some predetermined point, everyone stops what they're doing. They reach into their pocket and each produces a matchbook. They light one match the conventional way. Then they take the match and use it to set the rest of the matchbook on fire. And then, at the same time, everyone softly tosses the incandescent torch into the circle. All of them land on the alcohol-soaked pile of papers, which instantly erupts into flames. And everyone, young and old alike, cheers and applauds and thrusts their fist in the air, as the "BarBri" logo on the green covers of those papers slowly disappears into the onslaught.

For months I had this vision. It sustained me on sunny June days, when the world was at play, ignoring me and my classmates as we sank under notecards and waited for the guy on the video screen to finish his awful joke so we could fill in the damn blanks.

In a way, my study arrangement was rather poetic. I kept my BarBri books on my windowsill, where they did a rather admirable job of serving as sandbags and pillories, shielding me from the world outside. When I sighed and looked out my window, there they were, thousands of pages strong, dozens of books deep, blocking my view, reminding me that I had to get through them if I ever wanted to join the people frolicking on the part outside.

So these books became the symbol of impotence and frustration. They represented the worst of that bleakest of summers. And what got me through the day was that initial vision. The image of that world to come when, after receiving our results and confirmation that we would indeed never have cause to use those books again, we would all congregate on a field and set them all on the fire that would return them to the hell from whence they came.

Given these unrestrained and borderline crazy romantic notions, by now you imagine that I would be back, missing hair on my knuckles and smelling like a bonfire, towing along happiness and a citation from the city of Boston for setting things on fire without a permit.

However, someone informed me that, in this summer's itemized list of the thousands of dollars of expenses that are required in order to turn children into lawyers, one of them is actually a deposit. Although the money we spent on classes and filing fees is gone forever, we can actually get some of it back. Provided, of course, that we return to BarBri the only tangible objects from that summer -- the books.

And it is here that we find ourselves. On the one hand, the soothing balm of catharsis via fire. On the other, money. Only one can remain.

But which one?