Nighttime engulfs the town, slowly,
like a blanket gently tossed
atop a sleeping newborn,
leaving the streets barren of people.
In this blackness shines but one house,
antiquated scarlet brick, greeting visitors
with a warm, quaint welcome.
Upon its large window ledge
stands a short, red candle,
fighting mercilessly the darkness
encroaching through the glass.
Her owner sits besides the battleground
of the flickering flame,
in a large brown cushion sofa,
resting a book between her long fingers,
methodically sifting through the novel
until reaching her bookmark,
entirely ignorant of the blackened world
devouring the town.
A cool zephyr caresses her neck,
skeleton chilled by its touch;
yet her mind is not distracted
by the sweeping breeze upon her nap.
She continues her novel;
line by line, finger pressed to the leaf,
bones fractured by the crisp sharpness
of the author's words,
while the candle on the sill
continues to flicker uncontrollably,
struggling to fight the battle
against the devouring nighttime sky.
Her eyes follow the action intently, reading
The blood pours from his stomach,
gasping, captured by climax,
she is focused on the plot
as crimson candle wax slowly drips
to the wooden stand it rests upon
and she turns the page,
each skeletal finger frozen from anticipation.
She slices her index on the icy crystal slabs,
anxious to unravel the ending.
The protagonist dying on the floor
in a pool of his own liquid vitality,
whimpering behind cowardice
beneath the sword of his adversary;
the candle drowning to his antagonist,
down to nearly nothing,
but a wick of what once was,
dried wax stains the wooden shelf.
An orchestra in her resounds,
screeches of violins and crashes of pianos
echo through the living room,
and she smiles, using the cacophony
as background music for literary war,
the serenade of death for the main character,
hemorrhaging upon the snowy page,
with the candle nearly extinguished.
The sounds swell loudly in her head,
violins dragging bows across their strings
and pianos bashing the ivory
and she, unable to stop reading,
screeches as the lines are processed,
The sword plunges deep within his stomach,
and the silver becomes stained deep red.
A tear forms upon her cheek,
and the candle flame sinks slowly into darkness.
The pitch black covers its invitations,
the window no longer a vision
into the warm living room, lined with stuffed bears,
pillows and blankets on the plush couch.
It has become barren, like the town,
and her tear, permanently affixed to her skin
by frost, reflects the words she just read.
She followed on his three hundred page journey,
and his final breaths extinguished
within a paragraph of detailed imagery;
she sits in darkness.
Her body, tranquil, replaces the bookmark
to the new page, and stares into blackness.
She does not flinch, she does not blink,
she sits, quietly, as screams of silence
ricochet off the walls.
After the brief pause, she stretches her legs
and meanders to the kitchen,
grabbing a new match stick and candle.
Striking the head across her knee,
the candle is lit and carried towards
the window once more, where the old
one is hidden on the fireplace mantle.
She picks up the book,
and continues where she left off;
the blood gathers around his body.
and the candle flickers.
The pages turn, almost automatically,
as the candle dances from left to right,
occasionally hiding beyond the obscurities
of the shadows, only to spark back into place.
The novel's end, rapidly approaches,
the candle struggling to breathe,
and the protagonist lying in the cold solitude,
trapped in the river Styx.
Upon the last leaf she turns, the narrator reads,
A different day, a different battle could have been won,
but this one, a tilt at windmills, left him a broken hero.
The candle eclipsed entirely,
she lifts her body towards the kitchen,
pours a cup of coffee,
and stares at the beige wall in front of her.
The saga concluded abruptly,
blurring the lines of light and dark.
