Brief Candle

By Simon Mapp

Delve into a poignant collection of short stories that explore the enduring human themes of aging, loss, nostalgia, and love. Each tale is a delicate weave of emotion and insight, inviting readers to confront the fragility and resilience that define our existence. Journey through a series of lifetimes, each flickering like a brief candle, illuminating the beautiful, often heartbreaking moments that give life its deepest significance. A compelling read that will touch your heart and stir your soul, "Brief Candle" captures the essence of what it means to be human—in all its fleeting glory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon Mapp
• Release date: Sep 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215435212

Book preview

The Fellowship of Fallen Brethren

In a quiet corner of our sleepy town, my neighbour’s garden was a sanctuary of towering timbers—sentries that had stood guard for countless seasons. Their lofty boughs danced in unison with the wind, like a choir whose melody was woven through their leaves.

A decision was made, rational yet harsh, that they posed a risk to the bricks and mortars of our human existence that stood in their shadow. One morning, the growl of chainsaws shattered the hymn, and these keepers of wisdom fell, one by one, surrendering to the edge of steel and the will of man.

Except one. A lone tree was spared, not out of compassion but of calculation. Standing in the very heart of the garden, it was deemed innocuous. Even if it wished to collapse in a final act of rebellion, its branches wouldn’t brush against a single shingle of our fragile dwellings.

The sun departed that day, leaving the sky to mourn in hues of bruised purples and languid greys. The night was strangely mild, yet a whispering wind wandered through the now barren landscape, as if searching for the lost companions. This wind was not a tempest, not a gale, barely strong enough to ruffle a curtain or unsettle a cat.

And yet, the solitary tree toppled. It surrendered to an almost imperceptible breeze, falling softly onto the earth it had emerged from a lifetime ago. In that fragile moment, as the thud of its trunk was swallowed by the silence, it felt as though the universe sighed—a sigh as heavy as loneliness, as final as a last breath.

I gazed at the fallen tree and couldn’t shake the haunting thought: it had not fallen out of weakness or chance. It had fallen out of solitude, its roots aching for the fellowship of its fallen brethren, its leaves longing to once again dance in a chorus lined with kin.

It could not stand alone, robbed of its community, its age-old companions. The loneliness was too weighty for its withering branches, too overwhelming for its hollow trunk. It fell, not because the wind was strong, but because, stripped of its fellowship, it had lost the will to stand at all.

In the echo of its silence, I felt a shiver of recognition—a mirror held up to my own solitude, revealing the fragility of beings, wooden or human, when left to face the world alone. In that shiver, in that echo, in that quiet garden where one last tree lay defeated, I understood the sheer weight of loneliness, and how sometimes, it’s just too much to bear.

The Boundary of Being

He meanders from the sanctuary of his home, tracing a wistful path to the garden's intimate edge. Pausing, he stands like a solemn statue, his gaze stretching infinitely forward. To his left languishes the timeworn garden shed, a repository of memories, each splinter and rusted hinge singing a dirge of days gone by. Immediately before him, an expanse of flowerbeds unfurls, a vivid exhibition of blossoms, each petal an intense hue yet tinged with an ineffable sadness. These kaleidoscopic blooms serve as a fleeting counterpoint to the weight in his soul. Further beyond, the garden fence stands guard, its wooden slats weathered and grey, like ancient sentinels marking the boundary between the sanctuary of sorrow and the world that waits, ever indifferent, on the other side.

He lingers in this sanctuary for several timeless minutes, as if suspended between the realms of reality and reverie. To the casual onlooker, he might seem like a connoisseur of florals, a man entranced by the carnival of colours before him. Yet, should you draw near enough to pierce the veil of his solitude, you'd discern that his focus lies not on the transient blooms but fixes steadfastly on the garden fence ahead. His eyes lock onto its timeworn slats, as though seeking answers from their faded grain, each gnarled knot and crease a cipher to some ineffable truth held captive beyond the boundary of wood and air.

Each dawn, as the first tendrils of light unfurl across the sky, weaving a pattern of daybreak, he repeats this solemn ritual. Come rain that weeps from overcast heavens, or shine that bestows its golden benedictions; be it under the crystalline shroud of snow or amidst the shimmering lacework of frost—the elements bow in deference but cannot dissuade him. As the world around him awakens, he traverses the well-worn path to the garden's hidden recess, halting before the fence as if it were an altar. There, he stands, eyes narrowed in intense scrutiny, as though the wood bears inscriptions, some arcane script or celestial glyphs visible only to him. Yet, these ethereal words remain elusive, forever etched in a language his soul yearns to understand but his mind can never quite decipher.

Never does he relinquish his post in less than four reverent minutes, sometimes lingering even longer, as if suspended in a pocket of eternity. And then, as unceremoniously as he arrived, he turns, his footsteps whispering their farewell to the sacred earth as he retraces his path back to the sheltering confines of his home. Curiously, this daily ritual admits no repetition; its sanctity remains inviolate for the remainder of the diurnal cycle. He may indeed wander down the garden later, tending to the kaleidoscope of flowerbeds, or making a pilgrimage to the timeworn shed—a haven for both implements and memories—but the contemplative communion with the fence occurs just once a day, only ever in the reverent glow of the morning's first light.

For countless years, this ritual has woven itself into the very fabric of his being. Were you to inquire, he'd be unable to quantify its span in the annals of his life, nor pinpoint the moment of its genesis. Equally enigmatic remains the why—the original ember that ignited this daily pilgrimage, the invisible tether that compels him to continue. He himself knows not the answers; they dance perpetually just beyond the reach of his conscious understanding. It is simply an act as integral to his existence as the rhythmic beating of his heart, a ceremony ingrained so deeply it defies memory's reckoning.

Years hence, on a day foretold yet unknowable, age will have drawn its map upon his frame, making each step a slow, laboured dance with gravity, his legs crying out in silent protest. It will be winter, that season of slumber when the earth, too, retreats inward. The flowerbeds will lie barren, their soil a frigid, unyielding canvas. Still, he will make his way, with the deliberateness of ritual, to the garden's sacred terminus. There, he will stand, as he has stood countless mornings before, his gaze anchored to the fence, even as the tapestry of his life prepares to unfurl its final threads.

And then, after approximately two minutes standing as if frozen in time's amber, his body will subtly yield to the gravitational pull that tugs at all living things.