[ WP ] A lonely man keeps orchestrating widescale tragedies and disasters for himself to be a part of so that he can feel like he belongs

He watched the farm with a straw between his teeth, quiet and thoughtful, his fingers absent-mindedly scratching at his wrist were a bedbug had left a deep red lump last night. 
 
 Emily was brushing leaves from the barn door with her sturdy broom, driving them away to the side with easy strokes, her pregnant belly gently heaving up and down with her breath. He knew her routine well. She would finish this, and then walk into the barn with a bucket of hay to feed the goat. 
 
 Soothing pastoral sounds washed over his ears, the soft sound of a sickle hitting the crop, and the peaceful lowing of a cow in the distance. 
 
 The barn was different today though. The sacks of potatoes and rice stored deep inside had been replaced with sacks of gunpowder. He had dug small canals branching away from the barn to the fields around it, filling them with oil from end to end before sealing them with the dug out mud to hide the proof. 
 
 It was evening now, and it would be dark in the barn. He watched Emily carry the bucket to the barn gate under one arm, her other hand holding a match box which she would use to light the lamp inside. Only this time, the lamp was n't all that would be lit. 
 
 He had stayed with the Janlow family for over three months now. They had found him starving at the edge of their fields, just beyond the dirt road that ran all the way to the market, and they had taken him in. Kind and homely folks who had shown more trust in him than he had ever felt himself. Not really educated, but well-meaning and hard working people. 
 
 With them, for a brief interval, the craving he felt, the voices that whispered in his ears unceasingly had quietened down, and he had thought he'd found home, a place to belong to. He now helped out with the farm work, and spent his free time with the Janlows' younger daughter, Erica, as something quiet and beautiful bloomed between them. 
 
 But perhaps the gods had grown jealous of his contentment. Three days ago, in the dark of the night, Emily had come to him. At first he'd thought it was Erica, but then, as the weight settled on him, he had known. He had known, and yet he had n't stopped her. Something inside him had given away. The part that always gave away. 
 
 The next morning, he saw the truth in Erica's eyes. She knew. And with that the voices came back, their harsh whispers poisoning his thoughts again. 
 
 And so he had to leave, wander away alone and lost, until he found somewhere else, someone else. But before that, he had to burn it all down. 
 
 He put his hands in his pockets and began walking away from the farm down the dirt road. Behind him, the barn door creaked open, and then there was the quiet sound of a match being lit inside.
