Here Comes a Candle

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper—to chop off your head!" English jump rope song.

The candle guttered low on the table next to the bed. Curling tendrils of poison seeped from its dripping, wax cylinder. The tip was a lighted eye dancing in the darkness, winking open and closed, coyly. Death was playing its game.

"I'm coming for you," it seemed to say. "We've been at hide-and-go-seek long enough. Now's the time. Now's the time. Red Rover, Red Rover, send Charlie on over..."

He breathed in. He breathed out. A dying, guttering flame. His soul breathed out through the nostrils, floating like smoke into the Infinite. All was.

Have you ever wondered why you postpone a thing—an activity that could be accomplished easily—until the last minute, or even until it is too late for the thing itself to be accomplished? What force motivates you? What force guides the hand of the suicide? Or the assassin? What force? If a man goes out on the precipice of a cliff, looks down into the yawning chasm below, and suddenly feels at his shoulder the curious little personal demon, goading him: "Go on. Jump. You know you want to. This life? It's been wretched to you. Below, salvation in the form of eternal slumber. One moment of pain, perhaps, and an eternity of blissful night. So do it. Jump. Jump. JUMP."

I first read of a poisoned candle in the pages of an old book—some tosh from another era, another time. I knew that F----- slept with the guttering candle next to his bed, although it obviously was a risk of starting a fire. It was a short, simple work to locate a poison, the breathing in of which would bring about the cessation of heartbeat and breath. The terrible thumping pace of his heart, and his fortune falling into my hands, was the impetus behind my act. The impetus, and The Imp.

And so I poured the poisoned wax, and replaced his candle with mine, and waited. And certainly, death followed him into the realm of sleep, undetectable and complete, and sovereign was the power of the poisoned flame.

That light burning, like the tip of a spirit in the darkness. The soul of my perverse imp. "Here comes a candle to light you to bed; here comes a chopper, to chop off your head."

I swam in my newfound good fortune, and was thoroughly confident that as long as I did not confess with my own forked tongue, I would remain safe. Faces around me, going to and fro in the streets, or sitting politely sipping tea in the cafés, seemed ludicrous to me. Seemed as clueless, ignorant puppets. None of them seemed quite real, whole, and I fancied their ignorance was complete and paramount to who they were.

It was a short time later that the faces began to slip.

Sitting at a tavern, I’d converse politely with a bald man, a fat man, a sweaty, oily oaf, a working-class drudge with big, rough hands. We would be speaking, friendly, cordially, when suddenly, as if slipped into our conversation from some dream, their face would turn to me, and they would say, "I know what you did. Guilty."

And then their face would snap back into place. They'd take a sip of their ale, and I would be left with a stunned, cold, racing heart. It happened, time after time.

I went through the streets, the faces looking at me silently, suddenly bursting like full-blown black orchids of accusation: "I know what you did! I know what you did! Guilty. Guilty. Guilty!"

The sun beat down on my head, before a cloud covered it, darkening the sky and sending the cold, icy prick of the Devil's nail into my breast. I ran, diving into the crowd, knocking down anyone that stood in my way, as they began to pursue me, gabbling. I could not easily discern what words they spoke, but I imagined over and over the reverberating chant of "Guilty, guilty, guilty..."

As I fell into the gutter, I imagined the world darkening down to pitch. I began to move my lips, letting out my streams of confessions, to all the sins and maledictions of my life, my indiscretions and cantrips. But most especially, about the poisoned candle.

And now, here I sit, in a cell. Tomorrow, I swing. Does The Imp swing with me? Who can say?

I am here in this cell as of now. But the sands are flowing down through the glass. After it is finished, who can say?

My book: Theater of the Worm: Essays on Poe, Lovecraft, Bierce, and the Machinery of Dread

My book: Folklore of Fear: Urban Legends, Hauntings, and Supernatural Terrors

By 'T. Boneman Bakker" (Cover) Note: Book is listed, due to an error, as T. Boneman Burnett.

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