Short Folk #22: Wet Candle

 Note: This story is a mix of a really weird old story with new stuff. I still think it's weird.  If you've been following along with all of these you'll notice I'm moving pretty far away from any type of plot conclusions. I'm leaving things really open ended. I don't know if I like it or not. I'm just trying stuff out, I guess. My apologies if it makes the entries weirder. 

 Short Folk #22: Wet Candle

She stood at the night table and looked down at the burning wick of the white candle. She paused, standing in her slip, frail, looking at the flame. Then she put her thumb and forefinger in her mouth and ran them pinching down along the sides of her tongue, wetting them.  She reached down and snuffed out the candle with her saliva-wet fingers. So wet she hardly felt the heat of the flame where she touched the wick. 

            Then it was dark, but she didn’t climb into the empty bed.  She stood in place, swaying a bit from the strange pleasure of pinching out the candle with her wet fingers. First time she’d ever done it that way. She stood there and thought about how many thousands of candles she’d blown or put out in her life, and never once with wet fingers. Then she got into the bed she had shared for 47 years but now did not share. 

            But she couldn’t get to sleep. She hadn’t expected the simple pleasure of putting the candle out in that way. She hadn’t expected any new sensations.  The newness thrilled her, the tiny rebellion against the way she’d always been. She lay awake in the dark with her eyes open. Normally she would be afraid of the dark, or wary of it at least. But this dark was different, because she had put out the light in such a new way. It was her dark. She felt an urge to get up and stretch around in it. To move through the empty rooms of her home as if swimming in it. She felt like dancing. It was the first time in a long time she had felt that way. 

            She got up and found the book of matches on the night table. She lit one, and brought the tiny flame back to the wick.  She watched the fuse gain full flame again, then she put her fingers back in her mouth, running them again along the sides of her tongue. She tasted the soot from the first time, reached down and snuffed out the candle again. Jumpy and timid as she did it, like there was some strange new power in her wet fingers. Then she just stood there again in her luxurious dark.