The candle takes a moment to be sure it's over.
The flame goes, the smoke trails, the wick glows a little before that too goes dark.
You watch to be sure. This is instinct, not worry — the same way you check the stove twice before leaving. Not because you don't trust yourself. Because the checking is the proof.
The wax holds a slight depression where the fire was. The heat is still there, not yet distributed into the room.
All of that: just a candle going out. A small event with its own completion.
I've been thinking about small events with their own completions. How they arrive and finish without needing to be part of anything larger.
The candle goes out. The room is slightly cooler. A few molecules of smoke join the air and are gone.
The record of the fire is its absence: the warm wax, the faint smell, the dark.