The Last Candle

By Citlali Meritxell Diaz

Jes,

I write to you in candlelight. It is my last one. The flame flickers and sputters endlessly. The wax burns horribly fast, faster than should be possible.

When the lights went out, I staggered to where I kept my matches. With trembling fingers, I’ll admit, I fumbled for a match. I listened to its unsettling scratch against the box and watched the birth of that fluid flame. Quickly, I brought the match to the candle, for it seemed that the flame licked at the wooden stick. I could almost feel the heat reaching my fingers. I didn’t even have to set the match against the candle for long, the candle wick ate hungrily for the flame. With that I moved to the rest of the candles, but when I turned back it was already half gone. Keep in mind that these were no scrawny candles, Jes, but I could see them dwindle before my very eyes.

And now the rest of my candles are gone, nothing but pools of shadow where I had left them.

Now the darkness pushes in, thick and choking around me. This is not what darkness has been. This is not what darkness is supposed to be. This is not simply the absence of light. No. It is a heavy pulsing beat of pure black. It entraps the shrinking golden halo of my last flickering candle, of my last drying hope, and it leaves no shadow on the wall behind where I move.

I don’t think darkness is the absence of light. No, not anymore. Simply light is the absence of dark. And that is not even entirely true because have you ever been in a place where there is no lurking dark? Where there are no tendrils of shadows? In the corners? In the crooks of those buildings? Behind you? No. No, there is no such place.

The dark is a thing in it of itself. It is a greedy, hungry thing. We are lucky that we have never experienced the truth of it. The true dark would snuff the light out of mortals in a flutter of a flame. We think that if we turn off the lights in a basement, if we close our eyes under the covers of a dark room, that we are experiencing it. If we knew what true darkness was, we would tremble at the thought of sleep. Because when it finds you, there is no way to escape its smothering grasp.

I think it’s found me, Jes. I lie to myself pretending I am not certain, but I know that when the lights come back again, if they ever do, I will never be within those rays of light again.

And so, I write this to you, as my final candle begins to drown in its own wax, so that someone may know my story, and so that you will always have my gentle goodbye. I hope the dark leaves my letter. I know that it hungers for everything that contains me. If you get this, know that I love you, and I entrust my story to you.

Even if none of this had happened, I think I would have remembered this day. I’ve lived in Southern California most of my life, so I am not unaccustomed to the surging Santa Ana winds that reign in October. But by mid January, strong winds such as those are gone. Whatever driving wind we see comes with the yearly rains. But it hadn’t rained at all this winter. In fact, just a week ago it was 80 degrees. In the span of seven days, the temperature dropped dramatically and the winds that tore through our dismal coastal town only made it worse. The winds were not hot or acrid, but cold and brisk. It menaced the streets, tearing through the trees, whistling a frightening scream and shaking the apartment to its core. The windows themselves rattled in their foundation. Without exaggeration, I confess that I actually worried that the poor old building would collapse.

So, you would think that when the power gave out it would be nothing more than tangled cable lines. That’s what I thought too. I was wrong. I will admit that I screamed when the lights went out. I’m not used to being cast into total darkness, neither are you, I’m sure. I had been reading on our bed with the door to the living room wide open. And then darkness. Nothing. Nothing.

I should have been able to see the glow-in-the dark stars on the ceiling which we had put up when we first moved in. Or the windows behind the curtains should have eased the darkness because of all the light pollution. But I couldn’t see anything. There was nothing. It was pure, pure black. A darkness so thick, so opaque that I had to be at the bottom of the deepest cave or at the depths of the ocean’s miles and miles of lightless water because this darkness. . . it shouldn’t have been possible.

I should have known. How could I not have known that the lights flicked on a few seconds later, that wouldn’t be the end of it? God, I wish it had been. If there even is a God. I don’t think there is light bright enough to combat this wretched darkness, and no God could surely survive it.

I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the room and all of the contents within it that had disappeared seconds ago. Hesitantly, I sat back down at the edge of my bed, having realized that I had startled to my feet.

When I was little, I was scared of the dark. What kid isn’t? For years I had to sleep with night lights, or else suffer through vivid figures that I always saw moving through the night’s cover. A figment of my child imagination. I’m sure of that now, for there are no figures in the dark. There is nothing in that true darkness except the dark itself.

How can I describe this to you? How can I make you believe that darkness is a thing? A vile and cruel thing, heartless and strangling. I’ve never understood black holes, always questioning how something so powerful as to destroy everything it swallows and leave nothing but a black void. But now I understand. Except that this darkness is not sucking, as black holes are. You are not pulled into it; it comes for you. It engulfs you whole and suddenly there is no more of anything. Not even you.

I don’t think I was “lucky” to reach my matches fast enough, to light one just in time. I think it let me. It wants to toy with me, to play with me. It wants me to feel its choking approach as I know that there is no place to escape.

I felt it when the lights went out again, how the world became empty and dreadfully silent. There isn’t even a ringing silence, it’s just. . . silent.

One by one, all of my candles died out and suddenly all I could see were these pages and a pen, sitting perfectly in order on my desk. I don’t think I’m in my room anymore. I’m too afraid to sit down on the chair that is supposed to be there, lest I stumble and fall within its reac—

The candle is giving out. It is at the end of its wick. All the wax is gone. I was lucky to get this far. It presses against me. The darkness. I can feel it pushing on me. I’m scared. Please God I’m scared. I don’t want to be taken by the darkness. It’s too heavy. Please let the light linger. Don’t let me be forsaken to this darkness. Do not let.

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