Tallow
Flash Fiction
The oldest candles, her grandmother had said, were made from the dead.
She’d laughed then. Childhood makes everything metaphor.
The estate sale had yielded three, bundled in brown paper, smelling of something older than wax. She burned the first for atmosphere, for the aesthetics. She had guests coming, and the house was too new. It felt like a place nothing had ever happened, nor ever would.
The guests remarked how the room felt; warm, open, inviting. One man grew quiet mid-sentence and left early without explanation. She didn’t blame him. There was something in the air that made conversation feel like trespassing. The others left in silence not long after, one by one.
It was then she noticed that the wax dripped upward.
She looked up, the space above her, the ceiling dark with accumulation that rippled with movement. It was as though the darkness was breathing. Had it been there all evening? She reached for the second candle without meaning to. Her hand moved before the thought arrived. Curiosity winning against rationale.
The wick caught before the match did.
She stood in the doubled light and felt the presence arrange itself around her. Patient and domestic. A feeling that was familiar to her in ways she didn’t understand.
She went to light the third candle, but the presence took over. Consuming her. Her thoughts trickled away into silence, her body into matter, and consciousness into vapour
Emma-Louise Smith
©Emma-Louise Smith. 2026. All Rights Reserved.