A Sample

I'm in a pure writing mood. I want to be alone in my writer's cave composing words set to emotion. Here is a sample I'm editing for a short story collection:

Letting Go

Wax drips down the candle’s side and merges with a dry vein. My nose is inches from the creamy whiteness and my chin rests on the nest my arms create as I engage in a staring contest with the flame. It sputters. I blink. Contest over.

The pupil is a dazzling gold, piercing my thoughts with its hot fury. As another drip topples over the rounded edge, the lip of its eye, a thought pulses in my cranium -- candles cry. 

Is that why we use them? They have no voice but what an emotional presence they emit as their waxy tears fall for all at weddings, birthdays, funerals. Their sulky, dark emotion is great on heavy days, rain or no rain.

I sigh. My breath chastises the flame. Or maybe flame and breath dance. It depends on my mood. Damn. I’m feeling poetic again.

My mother would chastise me for sitting too close to the flame. “Don’t sit so close. You’ll burn your bangs.” I consider the sharp smell and brittle sensation.  

If I were in a musical right now, the bluesy music would drift from somewhere deep within my subconscious, very low and very slow. My solo would be the Blue Funk. Even the lights would be blue. When the beat picked up and strengthened, a dance crew would join me. At the end I would sit alone, staring into the audience with my pseudo-blue face. 

I laugh out loud. "Leave the musicals to Andrew Lloyd Webber," I say, talking to the painting, the dust, whatever is listening.

My laugh batters the flame, breaking my trance. My eyes hurt. I’ve been watching the candle for an hour until my retinas slowly seared. I blow out the flame. Time to put on my dress. 

No. The dress. 

It’s not mine to possess.