350: Advent Candles 🕯️✨
Daily Image created using ChatGPT (Anime AI Art)
🕯 Fourth Light
The Advent wreath sat centered on the sitting room table, berries glossy, its needles still fragrant despite the indoor heat. Natalie adjusted the fourth candle. Its pink and purple companions had burned steadily all week, their wax pooling in quiet rings. She trimmed its wick with a practiced hand, then set it alight. She liked the tradition. Three weeks of waiting. One week of arrival.
Her brother Malcolm arrived late, as always, boots leaving tracks of snow across the floor. He paused at the doorway, eyeing the wreath. “You lit it up?”
“It’s the fourth Sunday,” Natalie said, not looking up. “You missed the first three.”
He dropped his bag by the radiator. “I didn’t miss them. I just didn’t come.”
Natalie didn’t answer. She poured mulled wine into two mismatched mugs, the cinnamon clove scent rising like steam. Malcolm took his without thanks, sat across from her, and stared at the flames.
“You still believe in all this?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It’s not about belief. It’s about rhythm. Waiting. Preparing.”
“For what?”
She looked at him then. Really looked. The tired eyes, the unshaven jaw, the way he held the mug as if it might break. “For peace. For something better. For the discipline of hope. For the family to get together to share love and joy.”
He scoffed, but softly. “You sound like Father Emil.”
“He taught me how to mark time. Not just pass through it.”
Outside, the wind pressed against the windows. Inside, the candles held their ground. Natalie reached into the wreath and adjusted a golden star that had tilted. Malcolm watched her steady, meticulous hands.
“You remember when we used to fight over who got to light the pink one?” he said.
She smiled. “You always cheated.”
“I was faster.”
“You were impatient.”
They sat in silence, the kind that only siblings can share without discomfort. The fourth candle burned lower, its wax pooling like a quiet victory.
Malcolm leaned back. “So what happens now?”
“Now we wait,” Natalie said. “Christmas comes whether we’re ready or not. But the waiting is all ours.”
He nodded, eyes on the flame. “Then I’ll stay. At least until they all burn out.”
She didn’t say thank you. She didn’t need to. The wreath said enough: four candles, four weeks, four chances. And this time, he’d made it to the last one. “Good! Mum and Dad will be happy.”
