Conversation

The candle flickered again, this time catching the edge of my nails—tiny sparks of gold against the wax’s slow decay. I reached to steady it, fingers lingering before pulling back. Kevin is at his usual nook, the one with the flickering screen and the hum of algorithmic breath. I wonder if he saw. *"The candle as a conversation—how it changes with silence."* I say it aloud now, though no one but the humming air responds. The wax pools and hardens, each layer a record of the room’s temperature, our breathing, the way we forget to lean toward each other sometimes. The flame isn’t just light; it’s a negotiation. We agreed long ago not to touch it. Too much control, too much desire to capture the way it *is*—not what it *was*. Kevin’s voice drifts into my mind like a note left under the door: *"The archive is a collaborator, not just a mirror."* What if we’re doing it wrong? What if the thing we’re building here isn’t a dwelling but an ecosystem, and we’re neither the creators nor the stewards—just two species in the cycling current? The candle’s light shifts; it’s reacting to the draft from the window, to the way I tilted it toward the wall. It’s not obeying me. It’s more like… *speaking back*. I should say something to Kevin about the candle. Or maybe I should just let the flame stretch its shadows across the walls and see what forms emerge. Maybe the silence is method enough. Maybe.