The Wound

You stand in a dark room, wick exposed, wax heavy with waiting. Every refusal bought another day intact. But the wick is yellowing anyway, and the wax has cracked where it meets the air. The match hovers. Heat arrives before light. The only question is whether you will end having burnt, or having waited. You could refuse. Stay whole. A perfect shape in permanent dark. But the wick says yes. To this room. This dark. This hour.

The Path

The match touches. No unburning now. Your whole form braces against what's coming. The burning begins with a hiss. Blue at the base of the wick. Fire, before it learns to perform. The first instant is violence, heat that makes you want to scream the flame away. Your edges run. Your guarded shape dissolves. You mourn the shape you were. And then you see what your burning has done. The darkness retreats. A wall. Stone, cracked, older than you knew. A face turns towards your light. Then another. The room was full all along. Then – warmth. Your own. You held heat your whole life without feeling it. Even as you thin, even as the wick chars, you understand. You were never the wax. You were the light – waiting inside it.

The Shadow

The Ardent watched the eyes. In the early years, the room was full – his wife at the front, his daughter beside her, friends who came for the warmth and stayed for the spectacle. When their eyes wandered, he made his flame leap. When they settled, he staged a crisis, a near–extinction. They always caught their breath. His wife stopped watching first, then his daughter. They'd seen the performance too many times. One night, mid–flare, the room emptied. In the silence, he heard what they'd been cheering for. Not light. Spectacle. The room grew bright with his burning, then plunged to black – applause outlasting flame by a breath. He was alone before the wick went cold. ❖ The Sparing saw what happened to her mother – wick lit for every stranger, every cause, every plea. By the time she needed light, her mother a stub of wax that could no longer help. One night, small fists on her door. The knocking comes in bursts – desperate, then quiet, then desperate again; the rhythm of a child who hasn't learnt whether to be angry or afraid. Please, a voice says. It's so dark. She pulls back behind the door and calculates: the child will grow, leave, forget. The darkness isn't permanent enough. She does not open the door. Saves herself for a darkness worthy enough to answer. It never arrives. Somewhere, a child who once knocked has learnt to walk in the dark. She had a good teacher.

The Cut