A DECORATIVE CANDLE that once lived in a household took great pride in the attention given to it by the Christmas ornaments. “You shine so nice in the dark!", they told him and gathered around him during the cold winter nights to get warm and feel inspired by his flame.

One day, however, just before Christmas, the housewife bought colorful Christmas lights to put on the Christmas tree. "What a marvel they are, shining in the dark like that!", the ornaments exclaimed as soon as the housewife finished her work and switched them on, and our good candle got very curious, as he was the only one to have earned their admiration till that point. He decided to make his flame even brighter. In vain, however, as the  other ornaments were so absorbed by the flash of the Christmas lights that gave him little attention.

Many days passed, until he was completely forgotten, sitting at his corner and wondering what he had done wrong. "Your flame has no rhythm", a decorative ball told him at some point, and he got really disappointed to hear it. He thought of asking the synthesizer to teach him what "rhythm" was and from the other decorative candles to set up a show using their flames.

"The most important thing is repetition and timing", the synthesizer explained, then gave him a conductor's baton so he would direct the other candles. After many rehearsals, they all gathered in the same plate with their conductor, and invited the Christmas ornaments to watch their show. They even made sure their flames would be in perfect alignment so that all this would look like some sort of exotic dance.

Only a few minutes later, and there was not a single ornament that was not watching the show in awe. When the Christmas lights realized what had happened, they, too, set up their own show: flashing at different paces and each with its own color, so as to win the attention of the ornaments back. Their plan worked.

"It's pointless to fight technology...", the candle admitted as he saw his spectators leaving him for one more time and gathering around the Christmas lights.

No sooner had he finished his phrase, than the housewife's son, who loved poetry, entered the room. He, then, opened the window and the strong wind extinguished the flame of every candle except the one of our story, who kept fighting so as to keep his own burning.

"It's beautiful!", the poet exclaimed as he saw the candle fight the wind. He, then, closed the window and switched the Christmas lights off so as to avoid being distracted by their flash. With the candle's light to inspire him, he took a pen and started writing.

It was the most beautiful poem he had ever written.