Wax

I pour the wax from a candle onto my forearm. For a split second I feel sharp pain. Then a soothing sensation. I watch the patch of wax harden and then peel it off. It takes a few hairs but doesn’t hurt. I pour more onto a different spot on my arm. Again the pain is quick. I mutter: different wax for different jobs. Smearing goo onto sensitive parts and welcoming the pain. Suffering in a safety zone, parlour pain and armchair agony.

I wonder what it would be like to have the juice of a bigger candle poured over me. A candle the size of Centrepoint? That’s silly. It would completely encase me. Maybe the size of a postbox – the old-fashioned cylindrical rather than the modern rectangular. I would wear the wax like a shirt - a pourover! Of course I wouldn’t be able to move much once the wax had hardened.

Maybe they could develop wearable wax. Simply pour on your clothes of a morning. Different colours, patterns and shades. Wax shoes called runners! Might pose a problem when it comes to one’s toilet. So what about superabsorbent wax! Decolourising, deodourising and detoxifying!

Dear me! I’m bored you see. It’s Friday night. A half-finished beer is just not doing the job. I’ve been waiting since eight for my ever-unreliable friends who are taking me out tonight. They are determined to cheer me up after my big bust-up. I suppose I have been a bit morose lately. Usual shit. Misguided expectations, misjudged allegiances, misleading information. Mis-this and mis-that. It’s all missing.

We came together by default, she and I. The two singles in a group of couples. I was initially reluctant to act upon the subtle hints. All the winks, nods and raised eyebrows; the softly spoken suggestions. Admittedly, there was some attraction. I didn’t have to work hard for her company. She was always there at the numerous dinners and parties. One day it sort of just happened. We were a couple. Following which was partnership’s prescribed path – joint account, a property, furniture and fittings, all that sort of thing. Even wills. I didn’t mind at all. It made perfect sense. Tied up loose ends and made our friends happy. In the early days we had great times together. Everything worked well.

In the end who walked out on whom? She asked me to leave and I did. Without any resistance. Which made things much worse as it showed beyond doubt that I didn’t care. Friends became angry with me as they tried to find a solution to our problems. The nods and winks had been replaced by wagging fingers and words of advice.

Soon (too soon for some) I rented a one-bedroom flat. By now, I had put everyone offside, even my parents. Apparently, I was being selfish, callous and insensitive. Soon my friends avoided me. Then deserted me. Which is where my new unreliable friends came in. We were Friday after-work drinking buddies. My friends didn’t like them calling them brash and distasteful.
I was a different person down the pub on a Friday, untethered and unshackled for a couple of hours before resuming my role in the neat, well-maintained machinery of our group.

Occasionally, our revelry spilt over into a messy night. I would be taken to various bars in the city drinking ridiculous cocktails and meeting glamorous people. I felt belittled and bashful. Introduced and largely ignored. Probably that’s where they are now. Half-pissed, sliming up to whichever woman has the biggest breasts or shortest skirt. Rogues, you might say, rascals and rapscallions.

It’s now twentyfive past nine. They’re not answering their phones. Are they avoiding me? Don’t want me to spoil their Friday night? Maybe they just forgot. Plans made on Tuesday often don’t have the weight to carry through to the end of the week. O, I don’t blame them. I don’t blame anyone. Not even myself. Things just happen. Only in hindsight do we see what we may have done to avoid the inevitable. Can we avoid the inevitable? I had chances to change the sequence of events. But events have their own momentum. We get caught up and swept away by them.

I sit here in the silence. The CD has ended. How long ago I don’t know. Distracted, you see. Not paying attention. Can’t even remember what it was. Something moody no doubt. Background beats and wallpaper melodies. The longer I brood the more I hope they don’t call. I sip some beer. Nope, its taste has definitely gone. Couldn’t face other people anyway. Then again, I hope they do call and come over, barging in with beers and loud laughs. I need something to overcome my inertia. I have, quite literally, stopped.

The beer bubbles have all gone. Flat and lifeless. Just how I feel. Maybe I should drink it now. We can become one.

Yes, I’m definitely bored. I continue playing with the candle but it’s nearly burned itself out. Its short life nearly over. The flame is down to the very base of the candle. Wax has oozed all over the saucer on which it stands.

I contemplate the death of my friendly candle. Now, just a blue bud of flame with a tiny pink heart. The blue must keep the pink alive. Like a forcefield; like the atmosphere protecting earth.

Fleetingly, the flame fights back. It now wears a white helmet. It has found food and begins to thrive. Must be something in the air. Or the wick. Nothing but some dangerously volatile substance could fire this baby back to life.

I ponder nurturing this little flame. Like an acolyte, I offer up a piece of cigarettepaper to my godcandle. The flame digs deep into the offering like humans living off the back of the earth. The flame dies. Humans are nothing. We’ll destroy this earth for sure anyway. Matter a damn if it’s us or the ants. If ants took over the world, then one day there’d be too many ants. Imagine ants crawling all over the surface of the earth and living under it in their insidious little anttunnels and emmetburrows. Given that we know they farm grubs and other small slowmoving invertebrates, I wonder if they would evolve to farm cows and sheep.

I give the flame a bigger bit of paper and almost snuff it out. I gasp but manage to succour it with another small piece of cigarettepaper luring the blue flame to taste more food. I feed it twists of newspaper. The flame gorges itself.

But just as I am getting excited the unexpected happens. The saucer cracks clean in half! Makes my little heart jump and miss a beat. Little saucer cracked and broken. Defiantly, the flame lives on. Flaring indulgently. I feed it more. It dances voraciously over the crispy twists of paper.

But what’s this? Suddenly the flame drops to almost nothing. It blinks stutteringly. I panic and throw on more paper. That makes it worse. A wisp of smoke wafts up. Gone! Within seconds there is no sign of life. No ember. No smoke. Just the blackened twists in a broken ashtray.
I cared for that little candleflame. I wanted to keep it alive. But I overfed it and completely snuffed it. Like a man with too many things to carry in a land of robbers.

I am left alone with my smouldering memories. It reminds me of my relationship. It too has been snuffed out. Could I have tried to save it? Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned. Be more careful. Treasure what you have whilst you have it. Do not grieve for the past. You’ve got to get in to get out. I console myself with the notion that the candle would have died anyway.

My phone trills snapping me out of my reverie. A message from my friends. It’s as I suspected. They’ve been down the pub since four and are totally smashed. They tell me I should join them. Rush headlong into the maelstrom. I reply, Maybe next Friday.

I light another candle. It towers above the charred remains of the stub in its nest of broken crockery. More wax to play with. More painpleasure and agonysoothe. If only relationships were as easy as lighting a candle! Maybe they are. Never leave a candle unattended. There’s another lesson.

I look at my drink. Neither of us has any sparkle left. The clock marks half past nine. I sigh. Another great non-event in a seemingly continuous series. There’s an emptiness that more music won’t fill. I wonder what’s on the telly. Maybe I should watch what normal people watch.

I tip the tepid beer down the sink. Whereupon hundreds of bubbles appear clinging to the aluminium sinkbottom. Where had they been hiding? Where were they when I needed them?