THE END OF THE CANDLE

What me? Right now? Oh you know, burning the bottom of the end of the advent candle in an empty wrapper of a chocolate orange.

After Christmas Eve there was a stub of candle left so before it got stuck inside the candle holder, I wedged it out and slowly burned it down. Candles get drippy and waxy towards the end, so I stood it in the empty wrapper, lit the wick, and watched Christmas disappear with a dancing flame.

It’s getting on for a translucent pool. The flame is tall and orange, billowing around a long strand of blackened wick. It’s rising out of the red wax like the last tree on a doomed planet. Soon that long flame will flicker, puff its last gasps into the air and then collapse into the wax with curling wisps of smoke.

I’m not deliberately maudlin today. There’s no metaphor to draw, and I don’t think it would help me anyway. I’m just fascinated by the little things I notice, and it just so happens that the end of a candle is one of them.

There was another one today too. I wondered if there was room in the meteorologist’s vocab book for precipitation that’s somewhere between rain and sleet. I thought maybe it should be called reet.

I was out at the time, taking in fresh air before the dark afternoon fell. The reet was soaking me through, though it was almost invisible. I think reet would be cold rain that gets into your skin, but it isn’t quite frozen enough, or determined enough to count as sleet or hail. Still makes you wet though.

I burned this candle at both ends.

I know. That phrase means both ends of the day, not both ends of the candle. Nonetheless, I started it at the top, at the beginning of December and watched it flicker and fade until it’s just a pool of wax in a makeshift foil dish. The wick smoulders, the flame consumes the last energy of its carbon thread and flashes into the foil. It’s burned at that end too then.

I guess it’s time for me to go to bed.