I spent the weekend at a friend’s house for she wanted to discuss something quite important with me… well, if all of the surprises you can imagine, I had an enormous one, but unfortunately the outcome was not, so far, how I wanted it to be. But it will bounce back, I’m positive.
On Saturday morning after another small surprise we decided to go out of the house to have a manicure. Of course we didn’t have an appointment and we couldn’t get it done right away. We went for some cheap lunch, which ended up not being that cheap after all, for some coffee, and on our way back we decided to stop by the local catholic church to see what was going on there. I mean, there was a bunch of people walking out of that place and curiosity hit.
We started walking around the church, realized there was nothing but a regular mass, and decided to sit down at a bench right in front of St. Anthony of Padua (the catholic saint of the lovers and lost things) to talk about random things… as always. You all know that I am not a believer, that I don’t believe in god, let alone in any saint there may be, but there was something in front of him that called our attention. A new set of electric candles! Some of the candles were lit already, and, of course, being a smart ass as I am, I decided to light one as well. I dropped a coin as I supposed to, and instead of lighting up one candle my coin made four candles to turn off. Ok that it might have been just coincidence but I swear that thing freaked me out. I gave up the candle and went back to the bench. I spent some time thinking whether I’ve lost anything that I really wanted back, realized that there was something I wanted back, talked to the saint (yes, I was going mad) and started to pay attention to this woman who went up to the electric candles, deposited about 5 or 6 coins inside, has all of her 5/6 candles lit up and walked away. My friend and I were still at the church chatting away when we saw all of those candles slowly turning off, literally. I swear to you that that was something I would never expect, those candles were light for like 20 minutes only. The conclusion I got at that moment was more startling than anything else for, even inside the church, the market is stronger than anything else, we had the spectacle of the candle, your wish or miracle for 10 cents, valid for 20 minutes, and, next! Even a small light, which was supposed to burn slowly, is now electric and good for 20 minutes, quick, as we all should be in this new 21st century society we all live in. The light when it went on reminded me of something I read years ago by Guy Debord, and, of course, this is why I named this post The spectacle of the candle, and that made me sad somehow. We are all losing everything, from experience to hope, and I really don’t see how we will be able to live like this. Life should not be as ephemeral as a candle, but from what I saw yesterday I, right now, believe so, light goes off, but the candle still remains.
