It was brief and silent and warm.
What time could be collected consisted of trivial observations.
It began with the shadow of the flame, cast against the wall upon a burning wick.
Thirty seconds to midnight, the clock stopped, and everything but the beat of our hearts fell to true silence. Night became day.
The garden wilted before petals lifted skyward in flames. Flocks turned to dust, falling in Brownian motion. The wallpaper peeled back generations before us. We stood still—shadows etched in stone.
At the first sight of the bowling sun, we threw our hands to our eyes and witnessed negative hallucinations of memories. Our lives played through bone, like undeveloped film.
Everything—summers, laughter, trampolines, adolescent wet dreams, cats, dogs, morning runs, cigarettes, and a mother’s hug—gossip, lies, expectations, funerals, and graduations—live music, pouring rain, first kisses, and forgiveness.
No merciless burn could pull us from.
And at midnight, hushed by an autumn wind, the flame extinguished.