Fahrenheit 1400

I wondered if I could generate heat by merely thinking. Thinking harmful, vengeful, and thermogenic thoughts? Could I put something malevolent into an earworm whose cycling 'round and 'round could accrue heat recursively? What exact thoughts could do that?

Then they dawned on me. Those thoughts. Those sentiments that aligned the synapses just so, building upon themselves, inching up the temperature just atop my skin.

Mercury's rising.

It takes more than adrenaline. More than cortisol. It is something a whole new undiscovered gland secretes into the maelström of my turbulent, bilious blood. The choleric rubor, tumor, calor, and dolor coming. A new hormone, anentropine, secreted by the Conflagrineal Gland, the remnant of the thymus and lost to ontogeny.

But I found it. You find things when you need to, dontcha?

I am menacing at the very least. Sauntering into the crowd of my polar opposites. Folks who don't think like me. Don't vote like me. Don't pundit like me. The ones who wreck my country, my world, and my life. Aha! That's the key. Find your polar opposites.

Let the anentropine stir, but when you approach the opposite charge accumulation of the hideous mob-blob, you can feel it boil. You fuel the rise in heat by imagining the broil.

It's what makes a mob groupthink effervesce outside the constraints of the convolutions of our brains. It's what tables all rational thought in lieu of our primitive limbics.

Is it hot in here, or is it me?

I watch the crowd. The members of this suspect clique fanning their faces. Taking off their shirts. But it's freezing out here. I enjoy the paradoxical undressing of these poor, stupid bastards.

Is it really hot in here?

Yes, indeed, it is me. I can smell the singe on my arm hairs. I move into the thick of the crowd. I'll be going up soon, and considering my surroundings, I want to take as many with me as I can.

And oh, it took way less than 1400º. Just a little chemistry. And the right kindling.