#five of lights

[the-taxidermist-seeks-the-name]

Today, I happened across a chandlery. I didn’t mean to. I spent so long trying to avoid anything that whets my d__n appetite. So much wasted time... I had to pay for the candles, of course, but it was worth it. The wax was soft, almost gentle. My teeth were not.

[henryseeksthename-blog]

Scorched regret

I woke up in the gutter, soaked to the bone. My clothes are ruined. Half my hair is gone. So is a lot of my skin. I’m in so much pain. Kept passing out. Dragged myself back home. The guy with the brass buttons was there. Watched me. Maybe the Constables were looking for me, too. What did I do? What happened? There was fire, and candles. And hunger. I hope I didn’t hurt anyone. I’m hurt. Can barely focus from the pain. This would take bed-rest, at least a week. But I’m poor, and so hungry, so hungry. And in agony. I’ll sleep, sleep it off. What I wouldn’t give for some bromide.

[henryseeksthename-blog]

A candle-shop. Fire.

There is one in every street, isn’t there? A chandlery. A candle-maker. Behind their glass windows they hoard all that nice, crunchy wax. All those candles. I keep passing them and this feeling rises in my gut, strange and queasy. Like wire and spikes and acid. And I passed one by, and suddenly, I don’t know why, it seemed ripe. Ripe. I set fire to it. Set fire to all the candles, until it was so hot the wax burned without wick. I think the chandler tried to stop me. But I could not be stopped. I could not stop myself. A pyre. A blaze. The flames, so much better than the cold water I dream of, the dead water, the hungry water that lurks and waits in every well. The fire is hungry too. But it’s an alive hunger, bites my flesh, blazes so high. Eats all the candles, all that wax, golden. I laughed, and laughed, and hurt.