The Flame And The Candle

The Flame and The Candle

There was a time in history when humankind was but a small population, living off the greens and animals of the land, and sheltering themselves from harm in houses made of rock carved from the depths of Mother Earth herself. As all things do, they learned and eventually evolved. They would learn how to bring trees down and make them into tools for hunting and gathering. They learned how to make houses with the wood, sail the oceans, and one day, they learned how to create a single Flame.

The people were in awe. It was something someone made but not out of something that existed before like their houses and boats. It was not an invention, it was a discovery. A beautiful yet untamable force that could take or make lives. Of course the people did not know of this at the time, in fact many thought that there was no way they could have created something so alluring and magnificent that they credited the Gods with blessing it to them. The Little Flame was looked upon as if it were a single piece of the shining sphere above them that had fallen from its resting place and into the hands of the people.

In the beginning many thought it wondrous, a sort of magic that could only bring good to the people of Earth, and in that deduction it was not entirely untrue, but there was still a fierceness to it. A fierceness that could not be contained or controlled by any man. The Little Flame eventually grew larger until it was not so little anymore, and it danced around the wooden houses of the people but when it spun onto another house, the previous had vanished. It pranced to their wooden tools and they too vanished. Sometimes it would even skip over to the people themselves and with a single touch lit them aflame until they were but a pile of ash. They were horrified. Never had they seen a beast quite like this. One that was there but could not be touched, destroyed everything in its path but refused to be destroyed itself. Over time The Large Flame became bored of dancing, for there was nothing else to dance upon, so it started to shrink, and shrink, and shrink, until it was but a tiny Flame once more. The people whom The Flame had neglected to waltz with could hardly begin to comprehend what they had seen. Their homes and fellow townsmen were taken from them before their very eyes, yet they were too curiously mesmerized to even attempt savior. This wasn’t the first time an event like this would take place, in fact it happened nearly every day even if they couldn’t be there to view it. The Flame danced its way all over the globe, destroying the existence of a life for those who dared to stand in its path or assisting in the creation and nurturing of one if there was one clever enough to control it.

When the day came that a human would create an object that a flame could not combat with as much ease as before, the idea of The Flame as nothing more than an object for ruination slowly became a thing of past mind. It was a simple yet effective object that could be made from the fat of animals or the liquid harvested from deep within the depths of earth. It would always be topped with some form of a wick so the flame could have something to dance with lest it set ablaze anything around it. The Flame and The Candle were like a dream together. Each had found the one that would fit like two pieces of an unknown puzzle, and they would remain that way for decades. The Flame would tirelessly prance with The Candle for days and nights, and The Candle would reciprocate until there was nothing left for it to dance with and it devolved into a puddle of liquid. The Candle, however, would be rebirthed many times over. As many times as it took to continue nurturing The Flame’s joy.

Their waltz would stretch on for centuries, several millennia even, yet their caper always remained the same. No matter the multitude of times The Candle was subject to change it never ended any other way than The Candle being reduced to a shining sea beneath The Flame’s passionate warmth. This tired The Candle relentlessly for it did not want their entire being to be for The Flame and The Flame only, but it loved it nevertheless. They did not want to be tied to the dancer though paradoxically, they simply could not imagine an existence without it. Even so it couldn’t help but query,

“Do you ever tire of this endless cavort?” The Candle asked.

“Why, whatever could you mean?” The Flame questioned in response

“I ask again, does your eternal dance not ever entiolate you? You have done it night and day from the very time you were created yet you continue effortlessly whilst I wilt away.”

That was the only moment The Candle had ever witnessed The Flame’s gambol falter, even if for only a mere second.

“Why even if that is true you will always continue to be renewed.”

“What good does my reconstruction do if it will only ever happen again and again? I am forever imprisoned in a loop of time while you can reach the lowest of grounds and reach the highest of stars. You are bound by nothing, not even the force of a god for you are a force of nature while I am not force at all. I am not even a breeze in the wind or a tear from the sky. I am made for you, my life is bound by you and only you, but your force is not bound by me as your dance is not only for me.”

“I could reform my being. I could make my spins and twirls for you and only you. I would even cease my waltz if it is what you plead,” spoke The Flame, but the flame could never really change for that’s just what they were. A flame. They were never less, but they could never be more.

“I do not want you to change,” said The Candle. “You are beautiful and vibrant, the color of a rosy-fingered dawn, but if we were to become as one, I will continue to become a puddle of wax but you will still remain.”

After all The Flame could only ever take, and take, and take. The only thing The Flame could give was warmth, but what good is that if it burned anything who dared to get too close.

The Flame looked upon The Candle with the love made of thousands of years. The Candle was melting just like it said but The Flame could not do anything to stop it. They knew The Candle would soon be nothing but a pool of sticky liquid beneath them just like it said. As The Candle was almost to its end and The Flame watched them be destroyed from their own doing, The Flame knew what they had to do. It was something they had carried out before, at least not of their own volition, but if they wanted The Candle to continue living, even if for a little longer, they would try.

“Even if what we have isn’t meant to be and we’re forever destined to be each other’s downfall, I would still run back to you a million times over.” The Flame spoke for its last time, and with that The Flame ceased to dance. It ceased to exist at least for now. The Candle was now destined to an existence without The Flame.

-AW

The Flame And The Candle

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