Imperative Impermanence

What if candles could hold memories and burn them back to life?

What if every time a jar of candle is lit, a very specific memory and moment is triggered — to be relived, re-experienced? And what if the person who lights it encounters various choices and outcomes that may distort the original memory, depending on their mood and state of mind at the time of lighting?

There are some who cling to memories. Each time they fear the end of the candle jar, that fear feeds the experience, and they may wind up either traumatised by it, or simply decide the memories are no longer worth keeping.

There are also some who are precious with it, lighting it only on rare occasions, taking years to finish a single jar. The best of these scenarios: they are old, at their deathbed, and the candle is left burning to keep vigil. No painkillers needed because the state their memories lovingly hold them in is its own painless, soothing balm.

Others might use it ritually for every special occasion, or as a weekly check-in with themselves, to set the emotional stage as they reflect and review their goals and plans.

How would you choose to use this candle jar?

Here is one thing to know: you only get to link one specific memory to one specific candle jar. Once. When the candle burns to its final end, there is no more. The only remaining remnant of that memory lives as a backup — within you, and in your mind alone.

The candle maker is of unknown origin. They have been in business for as long as humans can remember. No one has seen the Maker's face, and legend has it that there are actually multiple Makers — but they are all one and the same. How else would people be able to receive their custom orders in reasonable time, from anywhere in the world? Their deliveries never get lost, never get damaged, never get delayed. A full one hundred percent excellent delivery rate, since the beginning of time.

How much a custom jar costs remains a mystery, impressively so, given how long the Maker has been in business. No one knows even an estimated range, and no one wants to talk about it. It is therefore widely speculated that the price for these custom memory candle jars is most likely not of our human world — not money, not currency, not natural resources like silver or gold.

It is also rumoured that the nature of the memory to be infused is entirely non-discriminatory. Good, bad, ugly, lovely — it depends entirely on the buyer's free will and whatever their moral perception is. That said, each buyer is generally limited to three custom orders throughout their entire lifetime, though the second and final orders involve a murkier process that even the underground circles of hidden societies cannot fully account for.

And how exactly does the Maker embed a memory into a candle? How does the extraction of the buyers' hopes, wishes, and desires work? What are the mechanics behind this; how is any of it actually made possible? A few unconfirmed sources point to only one thread of possibility: Magic.

To submit a custom order request, one contacts the Maker privately and provides only two things: a delivery address, and a summary of the memory.

Here is where it gets interesting. This is a widely known business entity with no physical and digital presence. Known entirely through word of mouth and yet, buyers can only describe how they found the Maker as something random and coincidental. A flyer that only they ever seemed to have seen, that no one else saw.

This brings me to the deeper question: what is the agenda? What is the true purpose behind the Maker and these magic candles, for our civilisation? Will there be any future ramifications from the greater cause and effect of these exclusive jars? I can only hope for the best, for our young nation.

— Solenne, The Travelling Chronicler: Worldly Curiosities, Aldora Year 149



Nimbly but almost mechanically, a tall lanky figure vaguely dressed in drabs moves systematically around a workshop full of candles with quiet confidence. There is no way to tell time or day in this space. The only sound audible is the gentle crackling of a towering golden candle at its centre. By its light, and the warm glow of rows and shelves of small candle jars, the workshop is sufficiently, cosily lit.

The candle maker works in silence, with the occasional disappointed tutting and joyful humming as they move between different candle jars. This goes on for what seems like eternity — until the massive main candle burns steadily to its end. When its flame goes out, all the other candle jars follow.

And for a breath or two, the space is engulfed in deep, dark silence; all-consuming like a black hole. Like the Void.

Then: a stirring. A shuffling of cloth. A stretch and a yawn. A spark, and then a small flame floating above the workbench, a small and growing light.

The Maker seems to have changed. In size, clothing, appearance.

They flip through the pages of a book and, as time passes, the flame grows strong enough to make the whole space visible. The Maker closes the book decidedly and writes on its cover with the deliberate artistic flourishing: Beladora Year 0. They stride over to where the towering golden candle used to stand. A new massive candle has taken its place — dark red, deep and heavy like dried blood. The hovering flame transfers over and lights it up. The Maker gives it a dramatic pat of endearment. By its light, some candle jars on the shelves flicker back to life, connected to the massive red candle by some invisible thread. The Maker begins tidying up the rows and shelves, removing the candles that remain unlit, placing the jars carefully onto a trolley and wheeling it out of the space. They return and carry on in silent contentment with housekeeping.

Then, quite suddenly, they still, as if frozen in time, intently focused on something out of this world. With a snap of their fingers, the space is instantly tidied up and set right.

The Maker moves again; nimble, almost mechanical, systematic, and confident — in this peculiar, timeless, unknown candle workshop.



About this piece

On 3 January 2026, I did a Writing Exercises course by Aniko Villalba on Domestika (I had free credits to exchange for). This idea generation exercise was called, "What would happen if..." The instructions: take an object in your immediate environment and generate questions until you find one that captures your interest and attention to further explore its premise. (5-10 minutes)

What was right in front of me was a candle in a jar, so my rapid fire questions were:

I went through all the exercises in one day just to note them down in my notebook and get a sense for which ones I'd like to try in my own time. This one seemed to lean more on the creative writing side which wasn't what I was looking for at that time, so I just left it as that with the question marks.

2.5 weeks later, I felt the creative pulse to give this a proper try, in whatever style it seemed to be calling out for. Writing the draft by hand in my journalling notebook, it took 1 hour 19 minutes from start to end without any breaks. What became clear during this time was the two parts to it: the first part being written as though I was some kind of investigative tabloid columnist in some fantasy world, and the second part being written like an outside observing the hidden world of The (candle) Maker. It has since been sitting in my digitised draft with my personal note: "maybe re-write the candle maker narrative part as a screenplay format? TBD."

Months later (this week), the creative pulse came to review and finalise the text without going too deeply into it and simply publish it on this blog. So I'm honouring that and now here we are.

The last time I wrote something like this but much shorter in length and time taken was in Secondary school, around 2007/2008. It was written in the perspective of an obsolete computer technology. 👀 We're three days away from the second full moon of the month, which I heard is the occasional blue moon. How apt I guess, for publishing this rare writing format. :)

P.S. ATTRIBUTION for divider: SVG Horizontal Rules by SVGBackgrounds.com


Gardening Notes
Total writing time: 4 hours 19 minutes
Cultivation period: 3 Jan - 28 May 2026 (146 days)
Resonance/Vitality: N/A
Moon Cycles: Full Moon in Cancer (Jan 2026) and Sagittarius (May 2026 - a 'blue' moon)