Light One

Another one shot I wrote after visiting the St. Catherine of Siena church.

We walked through the church in silence. Our hands rested safely in our pockets, tightly kept away from the frosty air blowing through open windows and swinging doors, and we gazed around the holy building. I wasn't particularly religious, I mean I had been to church as a kid but never really got into the whole thing, but there was something about that church that sat inside me, like a lump at the bottom of my stomach. The lump was heavy and light all at the same time; weighing me down and lifting me up all at once. 

There were pillars and walls separating different sectors, each containing a large marble statue or a colourful, stain glass portrait of a saint, and each sector held a rickety wooden stand. The stands were lined at the top with little candle holders, and long white candles laid on a shelf underneath the layer of holders. A few candles burned dimly on the stands, each one the prayer of someone wishing for a miracle. Each stand held a hand-written, laminated sign, with "1€/ Candle" written across it in a wearing sharpie. 

We stopped in each sector, in front of each stand. We came to one of the larger sectors which contained a huge, dark, marble statue of a saint I never knew the name of. I remember the candles in front of this one. They burned bright with multicoloured spots dancing off them from the window. There were exactly four. You could see the ones that had burned longer. They were only a inch or two tall with a puddle of melted wax beneath them, and more dripping down the sides to the bottom of their holders. I ran my hand over the top of the flames; slow enough to feel it licking at my palms, but fast enough not to burn. 

"I'm going to light one," he said, "just for fun." He dropped a dull, silver and gold coin into a slot on the stand. He took out one long candle and held the wick up to one of the other flames, catching the glow of someone's prayer to light his own. He set the candle into one of the dozens of slots and we watched the flames grow and grow. It flickered in the dim lighting, and danced with the others lighted around it. We stood and watched it burn, our hands in our pockets, then walked back through the church in silence. 

Reviews

[Hadri A Rahman]

I like the detail you put into the church's description in this one, that I could visualise how beautiful it looks, despite the minor blemishes. And I like that you didn't say "he dropped a few coins", but you described the color of the coins instead.