Once upon a time, atop a weathered wooden dining table, there was a candle. She was the color of fresh cream, stick-straight, and her wick was crisp and unburnt.
She was in love – hopelessly, desperately – with the kettle that stood proudly on the stove, for he was all strong lines and dark, shiny cast iron.
One morning she cried out to him: “O kettle! I know I am not yet aflame, but I hope you might notice me nonetheless. I am here. And I am rather kind once you get to know me. Might you get to know me?”
There was no response from the kettle. “That’s alright,” thought she. “For soon I will be lit, and then the kettle is bound to notice me.”
Not a day later, a match was struck and her wick lit, and soon she was bathing the room in warm yellow light.
“Kettle, look!” she cried. “I am alight! I know it’s not much – I am not a bonfire, of course – but you must look now!”
The fruit bowl – a rather uptight gent, for his father had lived through the war and was always harsh to him – sighed dramatically. “Must you be so loud?” he asked.
The candle suddenly felt self-conscious, realizing that many think it unbecoming to proclaim your passions aloud.
“I apologize,” said she, “but yes, I must, for the kitchen is all the way over there, and I am all the way over here, upon the dining table. I must be loud if I wish the kettle to notice me.”
The fruit bowl huffed, but turned to his pears and did not comment further.
The candle continued to burn, but she still could not catch the attention of the kettle. She reasoned that perhaps she was not burning brightly enough for him to see, so she concentrated very hard and made her wick the longest it possibly could be. And to her delight, her flame grew tall, and proud, and orange.
“Kettle, do you see this?” cried she. “I have never been so dramatic, so flamboyant, so impossible-to-look-past! Of course, I am still no bonfire, but I believe I now evoke the idea of one, at the very least. You must see me now, for how could you not?”
The candle burned for the kettle. But gaudy as she was, the kettle still gave no sign of hearing her, and she began to doubt herself. “Perhaps ostentatious is not what kettles like. I will change my tactic.”
At this point, she had burned nearly halfway down. With great effort, she slowed the melting of her wax, and the wick shrank to its prior length, and then shorter still. Her flame was now petite and white, crowning her with a pale halo.
“Darling,” she said, for she was beginning to be cognizant of her time dwindling, and proper names seemed a luxury for the leisurely. “Look at me; I am small and soft, like a newborn fawn. I fear I have put you off with my extravagant display earlier, but gaze upon me now! I am so palatable and soothing like this. Please notice me.”
A draft passed through the room then, and she flickered, for she was delicate in this state. She did not blow out, though, for there was too much at stake.
The kettle remained impassive. And the candle began to panic, for she was hardly more than a nub now.
“Darling,” cried she. “I am running out of time. Why will you not respond? You cannot set me ablaze and then be surprised to find me burning.”
There was no response.
“Kettle. My darling kettle. I cannot stop burning now. Look to me and see me burning. I burn for you, and you alone. Darling, watch me burn…”
She could feel the hard metal of the candlestick rising up to meet her as she dwindled. And then there was no time left.
“Goodbye, my love,” she whispered, and spluttered out.
A wisp of dark smoke curled out from the candle stick, and the room was quiet. But the kettle still said nothing, for everyone knows that kettles only speak Dutch.