Howie2

MEDITATIONS ON A CANDLE FLAME

2

I was remembering the fire the mad housepainter set. One man gasped at the verisimilitude of the flames. Another wept, though in relief or grief I couldn’t say. The crowd kept growing. Punches were thrown, children trampled, everyone fighting for a better view of the blackened corpses, the mounds of rubble. The thing I thought was about to happen might yet. I rush off to warn the barren woman who dwells in the firelight as a mother of four.