Young Writers Society

It was a still, quiet night. All of the lights were out in the house. The air was so cold. It was winter. The coldest one we had experienced in as long as I can remember. Did I crave warmth? Yes, I did, but it was the last thing my heart desired. My only love, my beautiful Pumpkin, my Candlet, well, she was the only source of light and heat in this house that I craved. Besides the passion of love that burned in my lighter fluid, it was only her that brought me warmth. Let me explain this tale of great woe, which pains my spark wheel so dearly, that I can barely light any flame.

It all started the day the human broke up with her boyfriend. Being extremely emotional, she made impulsive purchases of useless things she would never need. Things she thinks she needs, but clearly does not based on the amount of student debt she has acquired. I was one of those purchases. A shiny, brown lighter, full of lighter fluid and a desire to change the world for the better, lighting one candle at a time. Another one of her purchases was my dear Pumpkin, a pumpkin spice candle from the clearance section at the thrift store.

It was love at first light. The first time I lit her wick I felt a spark in me, unlike anything I had ever felt before. My flame became one eternal round, endlessly burning for her smell and beating for touching her once more. She felt it too. Every time we touched, it was like my flame kissed her soft braided cotton, a longing that felt like pure ecstasy. A shiver ran through my fuel space as we touched for the first time. "My love," I said, as we seemed to melt into each other's minds as I watched her wax begin to become soft, "I have never smelled a candle as perfectly spicy as you."

After that, I was addicted to her in every way. We touched rarely, only for a moment as I watched her flame ignite. But every time, my love for her grew like a stove fire or a forest fire in a dry country.

That was when everything began to fall apart, or I guess you could say, melt away. Literally.

Every time we met, I lit her wick. Every time I returned, she was smaller than she was the last time I saw her. I realized, with my little lighter brain, that I was the thing killing the one I loved most, in the entire world. My flame was killing my Pumpkin. Ma chérie. Ma belle. My Candlet.

She told me that she didn't mind. She told me that I mattered more to her than life itself, that she was willing to go to her glass recycling depot grave to spend her life with me. But I could not accept that. I could not accept the idea of living life without my spicy girl. What she didn't understand is that there was no life for me without her presence, without her smell, without her wick meeting my flame, without her laugh and the way I watched her melt, slowly. There is no joy in a life where she is absent from my embrace. There is no sunshine in my lighter fluid without the presence of her consuming countenance, which fills the deepest parts of my lonely soul with pure jubilation.

As I watched my Pumkin girl grow smaller and smaller, my mind became caught up in increasingly consuming thoughts, which were both dark and calming. My thoughts consumed me and I soon felt like I was buried in a pile of quicksand, far too deep to breathe. One night, while resting on the kitchen counter, my thoughts seemed to become unbearable. I thought of my plan to save my Pumkin. In order for her to live, I had to die.

I did not want to die completely, only enough to convince my human that I was no longer needed. Without me, she wouldn't be able to light her candles anymore. I am her only lighter and I know that her current makeup obsession has caused her too much financial strain to make any purchases, besides food, right now. It would buy us time. My Pumpkin and I could escape before she got the chance to purchase a new lighter. Before the love of my life died, or should I say, before I killed her. On this night, when my depression and anxieties for the future seemed to devour me, I did the only thing I could to save us both. I headed over to the Basil plant, which was nearly dead.

"Baselle, is that you, friend?"

In a faint, weak, and almost cowardly voice, she replied, softly, "Oh, Lighterio. Thank you for visiting me. I suppose tonight night is the last time I will breathe carbon dioxide. I only have a couple of leaves that are still alive."

Her voice seemed to tremble. Faced with death, she was overburdened with worries, which plagued her mind like fireworks exploding and lighting a tree on fire. I did all I could to comfort my friend, but it seemed that she was beyond consoling. She was set on death. At other times, she had always been so wise. She was known for being a sorcerer, who always had solutions to even the most impossible problems. After I comforted her the best I could, I found myself resting on her leaves, crying as I told her my pains.

"Lighterio, I may be so close to death that I know it's scent. I can feel it taking over my body as we speak. But I will die a selfish member of the mint family if I do not help you, one last time."

"Thank you, Baselle," I said. Tears streamed down my face, watching my dear friend struggle to expel Oxygen.

She smiled at me, the way she always did. Even as she was dying, she had the same smile she always had, when she was full of life. If only our human wasn't so consumed with her studies. If only I could water her. If only I could cry enough to give her the moisture her soil needed. Yet, I fell short, as I often do when trying to save those I love. If only I knew what was to become of me.

"Take this," Baselle said, using her trembling leaves to pass me some of her dry, crumbling soil. As she did, her leaves fell the the ground, like leaves that fell from the tree outside when Summer became Autumn.

"Take my soil. If we lodge it into your nozzle, you will not be able to light. You can clean it out after you wake up. This will put you into a deep sleep, for 48 hours. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"More than anything, Baselle. My small frame tells me no, but my heart beats at a different rhythm. With everything in me, I know I must do this. To save my love, my Pumpkin, my only reason for life itself."

With Baselle's gentle, pained strokes, her leaves lodged the dirt into my nuzzle. Putting me into a deep sleep.

“En sa beauté gît ma mort et ma vie,” I whispered, softly.

That is the last thing I remember before tragedy struck.

To be continued...