Candle Burning

• Isabella Wittman, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2019

I stood still, not allowing the ginormous specimen to see my liveness, pausing my breathing and blinking. Then I prepared myself for the continuous burning of my Fig & Papaya scented wax. The sharp pain traveled up my fragile glass container, straight onto my ash black wick. Embedded in a naked flame, the agony reached its final point and completely charred the first layer of my candle, I knew it wasn’t going out any time soon.
My friend, Waterlily and Lotus stared in terror as I melted away in complete silence, stunned. About an hour later a vast breeze blew out the fire, in relief, at least the Human was not going to come back for another day.
When the flame had gone out, my old wooden legs had stiffened in grief and my dusty mane had almost disappeared. It was a horrible sight, however, there wasn’t much I could do, especially with the state of myself at the moment. I leaned over to Teddy to say hello and offered him some dollhouse food, the dolls were quite kind as they were treated better than anyone else due to them not being the youngers responsibly.
Personally, I would adore being a doll, living in a dream house, hair being brushed as I slept on a comfy doona but it’s practically impossible. The only thing which keeps me comforted and entertained is writing, creating new lives and enhancing readers with a beautiful vision. I get up from Teddy’s establishment, say my farewells and waltz over to my brown, rural desk, my only belonging. Grabbing a piece of paper and a led pencil, I write a new story describing the world of a helpless civilization of toys.