Sizzling Hot Coincidences

  

Sizzling Hot Coincidences 

By Vince Stadon 

 

Night Stalker: Episode 4: Burning Man 

First published in Inside Out Trusts No One

Editor Stacey Smith

 

 

Every word of what follows is true. Well, sorta/kinda.  

Burning Man, the fourth episode of Night Stalker, is the single most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen. It is not just the fourth episode of a rather dreary short-lived US television show - it is, for me at least, a mind-blowing, life-altering experience. Because everything that happens in Burning Man happened to me. Only sexier. And with better special effects. 

Let me explain. And bear in mind, please, that my hands are trembling as I write this, and that Scully - the sleepy old ginger cat flopped out on my lap - is snoring so loudly that my brain is rattling in my skull. I’m not in good shape.  

When I say that everything in Burning Man happened to me, I should clarify that I don’t mean absolutely every single thing. For instance, seventeen minutes into the episode, a wealthy and happy man climbs out of his luxury swimming pool, kisses his swimwear model girlfriend, and then eats Mexican takeaway food. At eighteen and a half minutes, in an abrupt turn of events, the man is burning to death in his swimming pool, and it’s highly doubtful that he’s still happy. Clearly this has never happened to me because I’ve never been happy, and I don’t eat Mexican food. Not that I don’t like Mexican cuisine - on the contrary, I find it delicious; it’s more that my doctor has advised me against noshing down spicy foodstuffs because it raises my blood pressure and makes me grumpy. But I digress. 

Let me lay out the key facts. 

Burning Man: A dogged reporter investigates a series of murders. My Life: When I was thirteen, I contributed to the Lockleaze Gazette - Lockleaze Comprehensive School’s hard-hitting quarterly journal. I wasn’t a reporter, I was a cartoonist (my cruel yet accurate caricature of the headmaster as Mussolini was the hot topic of many a school dinner), and though I didn’t technically investigate a series of murders I’ve never lost a game of Cluedo (it’s pretty much always Mrs White, in the study, with the candlestick: trust me on this). And I’ve never been described as dogged, but I did have a dog… named Bernie. Burning Man, Bernie the mastiff. Coincidence?  

The victims are burned to death. My Star Wars action figures - including the rare Han Solo variant with the small head - were melted into a gooey pool of stinky plastic by a vindictive school bully named Ash for reasons he never disclosed. Coincidence? 

The victims were sent tiny red wax figurines. Two days ago, I awoke at noon to a hammering on my door - an insistent courier wanted me to sign for a mysterious Amazon Prime parcel. I scribbled a fake name (Carl Bernstein - I’m cycling through famous reporters, and last week it was Clark Kent), and was puzzled and unnerved to discover that the box contained several packets of coloured wax crayons! How strange, I thought. How unsettling. Was this some kind of message? A warning? From whom? Then I remembered that my wife had ordered them as a present for our niece. Her name? Blaze. Coincidence? 

Kolchak refuses to rule out supernatural forces. I daily place the blame for all the things that annoy me on terrifying uncanny manifestations. Netflix doesn’t have the film I want to see? Gremlins at work. Can’t find my good pair of socks? Malevolent Poltergeists have thrown them into the gates of Hell. Salad again for lunch? My wife hates me.  

Kolchak seeks help from a retired FBI Agent. A week ago, I asked a random Welsh stranger for directions, and he kindly supplied them… along with reams of information about himself (which frankly I didn’t have time to listen to, but I was being polite, and there was something haunting about his eyes), including the fact that he used to be a temp cleaner at the BFI (British Film Institute) before he retired with a dodgy knee.  FBI, BFI. Don’t tell me this is all just coincidence. 

There are other examples. In Burning Man, Kolchak has a habit of saying something moodily pretentious, and then leaving the room. I used to do that, until someone threatened to punch me in the face if I didn’t cut it out. Burning Man is forty-two minutes long: precisely the time it takes me to take all my anti-anxiety medication. Night Stalker co-stars a charismatic actress named Gabrielle Union-Wade, who was in Bad Boys II - a film I watched by mistake last year. Kolchak’s editor is named Vincenzo - I am named Vince, and my wife calls me Vincenzo in moments of high passion (coincidentally, her ex-boyfriend is named Vincenzo).

I could go on (I have several file cases filled with documentary evidence and unopened divorce papers), but I think I’ve done more than enough to convince you all. And judging from the ferocity of the bites on my leg, my cat is clearly very hungry. I will, though, leave you all with one final thing. My wife has left me for a man named Carl, and they are planning on attending a summer festival… called Burning Man. 

 

 

 

 

Vince Stadon lives anxiously in England… coincidentally the very same tiny island that Kolchak actor Stuart Townsend comes from. What are the chances of that?