Candle

• Lilli Ingram, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2015

As the flame flickers and dances and tickles my shoulders, I feel its warmth surround me like a cocoon. As a cool wind passes through the silent hallway, the fire moves in a way as if it were laughing hysterically to a side splitting joke.
It calms down slowly, swaying to the silent beat of a beautiful melody only it can hear. I look up, I can see the tiny amounts of smoke it's releasing into the atmosphere. It’s colour is easy, it reminds me of a warm fireplace on a cold winter’s night, welcome to anyone who needs to warm their dreary souls. It cannot hear nor see, it can only feel and give, it feels the cold nights and it gives us warmth on those frosty evenings when we so dearly need its gentle heat.
Its heat is so close to me, I can almost feel it burning against me, melting me. But fear not for me, for I am just a candle on the old stone mantelpiece, looking over a burning fireplace and sulking at my empty wick, imagining, wondering, if ever someone will light me again.