One Candle Before the Lamps

The sitting room had gone dim earlier than I expected.

I reached for the lamp switch without thinking, then stopped with my hand halfway there.

The window was still holding a little blue-gray light. Not much, but enough to keep the room from becoming night just yet.

So I lit one candle on the table instead.

At first, the flame seemed very small beside the window. It illuminated one chair, caught the brass edge of a frame, and left the books mostly to themselves.

Smokey came in, circled the rug once, then settled at its candlelit edge. He appeared to have chosen the precise boundary between visible and unavailable.

We stayed there as the window slowly lost its color.

The chair grew warmer in the candlelight. The brass edge brightened. Shadows gathered between the books, and the little flame began to look less like part of the room and more like the thing arranging it.

I sat for a while and watched the room change around the little flame.