Candle Bright

My aching eyes scanned the screen before me, re-reading the same line for the fifth time. “I’m sorry, but the file you provided covered engine 1a, but we were looking for information on engine 1. Please provide the correct items by tomorrow morning.”

I’d spent days pulling together the information I’d thought they’d been looking for. I’d only recently started at the company, and so when the request came in, I’d thought nothing of pulling together the more recent information, never considering that maybe they’d been asking for files from an older, completely different but similarly named engine. Now, not only did I have to redo the work and generate the information I thought I’d already provided, but I’d embarrassed myself in front of my boss and co-workers. Again.

“Typical,” I muttered, feeling the ache behind my eyes double. “Why do something once when you can mess up and do it a dozen times over?”

I rose from my desk, joints creaking and popping like a skeletal chorus, and began packing up to go home. I couldn’t take any more of this today; the customer had given me a deadline of tomorrow, after all. Why not save the second round of tedium so that it could ruin an entirely new day? The eyes of my co-workers burned holes into my back as I departed. Were they judging me for leaving with the task unfinished? Rolling their eyes at the ignorant newbie wasting everyone’s time? Part of me wanted to turn on my heel and confront them, call them out for not instructing me properly in the first place, but I held my tongue. The first rule of business here was that the only one responsible for learning what I didn’t know was me.

Once home, I dropped my bag to the floor and grabbed a beer from the fridge, letting the alcohol numb the pain in my head. It wasn’t a healthy habit that I’d developed of late, but wasn’t this what being an adult was about? Suffering through your day job before drowning your mediocrity in booze? I threw myself on the couch in front of the TV, eager for distraction. The screen illuminated the dark room, and for a few minutes, my awful day started to melt away into an only fairly unpleasant buzzing.

The smell of sweet caramel wafted through the living room. One of my neighbors must be baking. My stomach rumbled in response; beer was hardly a suitable replacement for dinner. With a sigh, I rose from the couch and wandered into the kitchen, letting the TV drone on in the background. I wasn’t really paying attention to it as I pulled the ingredients of a bland salad from my fridge, but the noise was loud enough to drown out my thoughts and that’s all that mattered. I started assembling my dinner, only to notice the lit candle on my counter.

I blinked, half expecting the small flame to vanish on closer inspection. It was a candle I’d bought the week before, a clearance item down at some home goods store. It was the source of the sweet smell that’d roused me from my stupor. I didn’t remember lighting the candle when I’d walked into my apartment, but clearly I must’ve. The cheery orange flame danced on its wick before me.

I sighed heavily. The aroma the candle gave off was pleasant, but I wasn’t even close to being in a pleasant mood. I blew out the candle and went back to preparing my dinner.

With a plate of depressing greens in hand, I returned to the living room and sat on the couch. My meals weren’t anything to write home about lately. My breakfast had been a Pop-Tart, my lunch a ham sandwich. Years ago, when I was younger and more energetic, I’d been motivated to prepare lavish, filling meals that were easy to prep and warm up as needed, but lately I barely found myself left with the energy to assemble a sandwich, let alone cook an entire meal. I was eating, at least. But how much longer until I ran out of energy to even do that bare minimum?

I finished my first bottle of beer and rose to fetch another from the kitchen, the room illuminated by a flickering orange light. I was halfway back to my seat before I realized the candle was still lit.

“What the hell,” I mumbled, inspecting the beer in my hand closely. “How high is this alcohol content? I can’t be drunk already.”

Without another thought, I extinguished the candle—waiting a few seconds to make sure it stayed out—before returning to the couch. As soon as my ass touched the cushions, however, the smell of caramel assaulted my nostrils. The candle was burning again.

“Is this a trick wick or something?” I blew the candle out a third time. This time, the candle didn’t wait for me to walk away to reignite. “Oh come on, not you too,” I groaned. “Don’t tell me I can’t even blow out a fucking candle right.”

Oblivious to my frustration, the candle flickered on. I was tempted to dunk the damned thing under the faucet and be done with it, but I resisted. The candle burning wasn’t hurting anyone or anything, and there was only so much wick to burn regardless. Might as well just let it go for now and worry about it later.

I ate my dinner, paying the candle no further mind. The show I was watching on TV was innocent enough. The main character was annoyingly competent, but that was to be expected. Why would anyone write a story about someone messing up over and over again? No one worth paying attention to ever messed up, did they? My mood soured as my second beer disappeared. It was only a matter of time until I got fired, at this rate. It’s what I would do to me if I was in charge.

A sharp popping noise pulled my attention from the screen. The candle was crackling, the flame undulating more than usual. I started to think that I needed to reevaluate my assumption from earlier—maybe the candle would hurt someone if I left it burning. I turned the TV off and approached the flickering light, frowning down at the sweet-smelling candle.

“You are being a little pain in the ass, you know that?” I picked up the lid of the glass jar the candle was nestled inside and replaced it, hoping to choke the flame of oxygen once and for all. To my surprise, the lid just popped right back off, landing beside the candle on the counter with a sharp clatter. The flame burned on, unhindered.

“No more playing nice, huh? Fine.” I lifted the candle and took it with me into the living room, setting it on the table next to the scraps of my salad. I folded my arms across my chest on the couch and glowered down at the light, giving it my undivided attention. Clearly, it wanted me to look at it. For what purpose, though, I couldn’t say.

I stayed there frozen in place for several moments, waiting for the candle to do something spectacular. Anything to appease the damn thing so I could get back to my show. I breathed in the sweet-smelling smoke, letting it fill me to the brim, before exhaling sharply. The scent made me think of eating baked goods right out of the oven as a child, savoring the buttery feel of cookies crumbling in my mouth. Maybe I should bake something sweet for myself. I could go to the grocery store this weekend and get the ingredients. It could be fun.

I shook the thoughts of baking away. Baking meant expensive ingredients, spending hours in front of the oven, and complicated recipes on an ad saturated phone screen. Nothing about the experience would be pleasant, and besides, I’d find a way to mess them up and make it all go to waste, anyway. That’s how things always went for me.

No, that wasn’t true. I’d made wonderful cookies and sweets in the past. Not just stuff from a box, either. True scratch recipes that would even make my grandmother proud. Sure, they didn’t always turn out perfect, but it didn’t matter. I could always try again, and the failures only made the successes taste even better. That was worth the effort and money, wasn’t it?

I sighed heavily, turning my gaze from the candle. With work being as draining as it was, it was hard for me to find the energy to put that effort in, especially for something as volatile as baking. I hated nothing more than having to redo work. It felt like a waste of time. Like my current project at work; it wouldn’t be hard to make the changes the customer had asked for. Just tedious, and it would feel like all the effort I put into the first round was wasted.

But was it wasted, really? I’d learned something valuable, hadn’t I? And while yes, I still made mistakes on regular intervals, they were at least different mistakes each time, right? Once I messed something up, you could be damned sure I wouldn’t do so again. Just like with baking; even the times my brownies came out like bricks or I messed up the order of combining the wet and dry ingredients, I learned how to do the process a little better every time.

What if no effort was ever really wasted?

I pondered that thought as the candle burned on, flickering happily on the table before me. I felt like a vise was steadily loosening from around my gut with every exhale, the pain behind my eyes fading from the fuzzy, numbed ache of the alcohol to something even more subtle.

“I am still learning,” I said. “I am always learning and improving. No effort is ever truly wasted.”

I sank back into the couch cushions, allowing my eyes to drift closed as a pleasant sensation drifted through me. When they opened again, the candle had burned out, though the aroma of freshly baked caramel remained. With a smile, I returned the glass jar to the counter and prepared for bed, ready to sleep off the exhaustion and alcohol in preparation for a new day.

And maybe, just maybe, I’d make some caramel swirl cookies over the weekend.