The Candle

By Anne Mitts

Once there was a beautiful blue candle that lived in a box in the kitchen of a great mansion. His life was simple. He enjoyed chatting with the other candles and watching the sunlight move from one side of the room to the other. Many evenings he watched as other candles were taken and placed in shiny, sparkling candle holders. The butler would take a match and light their wicks. The glow from the candles was brilliant giving off a lovely brightness similar to the sunshine he watched during the day. The butler would then whisk them away through the kitchen door. The next morning the little blue candle would see the empty holders sitting on the shelf.

Little blue, as he was called by his friends, imagined that the candles that left the night before went to a very fancy place, a place where people admired and appreciated the warm glow of a candle and how their light made the room look special and inviting just as the sun did almost everyday for him. He believed that these candles glowed forever. How he longed to go with them.

Night after night he waited to be chosen but each evening he was left in the box. Red, green, gold and silver candles were taken. Orange, yellow and even purple had their turn. Little blue gave up wishing.

Then it happened. The butler walked into the kitchen one evening, walked up to the box and picked up Little Blue along with some of his friends. They were not placed in the regular candle holders. The butler took out a gorgeous candelabra and Little Blue was placed in the center position above the rest of the candles. He felt so proud and excited.

The butler lit a match and then each candle was lit, with Little Blue being the last. The glow felt very warm to him. The candles in the candelabra were carried to a large room with many people and set down on a sturdy oak table. The people around Little Blue didn’t really seem to notice the beautiful glow. They were having fun laughing and dancing.

Little Blue started looking around the room to find his friends who had left the kitchen all those nights before. He could not see any of them. They were not there. Little Blue wondered where they had gone.

Soon he noticed that his friends were shrinking. “That is strange” he thought, “my friends are getting shorter. Oh my, so am I.” Little Blue continued to shrink as his light became dimmer and dimmer and soon all that was left of Little Blue was a tiny stub with a not so bright glow.

All of the people had left the room but Little Blue hadn’t noticed. The butler blew out the candles including little Blue. He then carried the candelabra to the pantry. The candle stubs were removed and dropped in a bucket. When the room was quiet Little Blue looked around and saw that he was in a bucket with the remains of the candles that had been taken out of the kitchen on so many nights before. “So this is where we end up. We don’t glow forever. We melt and are thrown away. Our lives as candles have ended. How very sad.” thought Little Blue as the sun started to peek through the window.

Just as Little Blue finished that thought, the butler came into the pantry, lifted the bucket filled with the candle stubs and carried it to the back door. A very beautiful woman was waiting at the door.

This woman had a certain kindness to her face. She was wearing a blue woolen cape and her head was covered with silk veils that hid her hair. She smiled and took the bucket from the butler and then carried it away with her.

The next thing Little Blue knew he was being warmed in a very large pot. His wax was intermingling with the wax of all of the other candle stubs. There was no more distinct color. All the colors had melted together and turned a greenish brown. “Oh how awful to be this color” thought Little Blue.

Little Blue could see the kind face of the woman who had picked up the bucket looking down smiling as she stirred the wax. He could see her hair now as golden and bright as the sunlight. She had sparkling wings just like an angel. “She is an angel” thought Little Blue. Suddenly it didn’t matter what color he was.

The woman left her stirring and went to a shelf and picked up a golden shaker of some kind. She brought it to the pot and started shaking a sparkling powder into the pot. In a second the wax had turned from that awful greenish brown to a stunning golden color.

This golden wax was then poured into forms. When the wax hardened the forms were removed. Little Blue was placed by a mirror on a shelf. He was so surprised at what he saw. He had been transformed into a delicate, golden dove. He looked around and saw that all of his candle friends had gone through this same transformation.

Little Blue was so happy with this new form. He had always thought that his candle life was all there was. He soon was able to see that this new life as a beautiful delicate dove, would be much happier and so much more peaceful. He was content to sit and decorate the shelf watching the sun move from one side of the room to the other enjoying the light that shone off of his golden color.

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