July 30th 2015

Story originally written and experienced: July 13th 2015

I almost set my entire apartment into flames.

Good times, good times.

And the story goes like this:

 “Shall I…set the mood?” I said to my sister and roommate, Silvia, with optimal sarcasm as I ignited a lighter and pointed it straight towards the verbena candle in my room.

“Whatever,” she responded with distracted “enthusiasm” punching buttons on my iPad to Google Chromecast an episode of “How I Met Your Mother” on our T.V.

It’s true.

Thing is.

We’d been cooking a lot of weird shit lately in our apartment—in an active effort to save money, be healthy etc. etc. whatever, whatever. Lots of zucchini, chicken and greek yogurt nonsense—lending a unique conglomeration of scents throughout our humble abode.

Yes Tyra, we’re aware.

Also.

We’d been traveling a lot. Going through a lot. Heads spinning with things. 

So I figured.

Let’s light a few candles.

4 in the living room. And 4 in my room.

And call it a damn night.

Get some excellent aroma going. A relaxing mood in the queue.

Make the whole experience stress-free, not horrifying and overall, peaceful as fuck.

Dreamin big.

….

So there we were.

Lounging in our baby-sized New York City living room, assuming our positions

Just the two of us.

Watching our favorite show.

When suddenly.

I saw something fLiCkER.

To the left.

I was lying on my couch with a

                                                                                       diagonal view to my bedroom.

“Must be a shadow…” I blatantly lied to myself.

Except when saw it again.

Keepin mah cool.

I reluctantly arose from the couch. Saying nothing to Silvia and    s  l  o  w  l  y   making my way towards my bedroom.

Actin casual.

And that’s when I saw it.

My verbena candle completely and utterly.

Engulfed in fLaMeS.

Making progress.

My heart

dropped.

My eyes growing to the size of grapefruit.

You got it, Tyra.

And all I could think to say about my candle-lighting decision besides,

Was to mutter in low-key terror,

“Silvia…fire….”

Then louder.

“Silvia…FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!”

She came sprinting into my bedroom, thus joining me in my panic.

Neither of us were wearing pants.

#PJs

Which means.

There we were.

Depantsed.

Incredibly alarmed.

And reminiscent of 2 Sims characters just trading awkward hand movements and some semblance of words.

For a visual.

“DO SOMETHING!” I screamed at the baby sister I promised my mother I would keep safe and preferably fire-free when she moved to the big city. “SILVIA THIS IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY PUT YOUR LIFE ON THE LINE IMMEDIATELY.”

She bravely and obediently bee-lined for the kitchen to look for anything that qualified as life-saving supplies while I continued to be extremely useful:

For example.

Until.

I spotted a half a glass of water miraculously sitting on my dresser.

HOLLA.

It was time to put my 17 yearsish of education to the test.

Water.

That was it!

I grabbed the glass instantly.

D

u

m

p

i

n

g

The entire cup onto the flame with optimal glory.

100% semi-certain I had saved the damn day.

MOM. LOOK AT ME. MOM PLEASE!

The flame exploded and grew 3 times the size.

Not only that.

But.

My wicker basket full of flammables was just centimeters away, prompting me to toss everything in potential danger onto my bed, whilst the flame began to sPaRk, hiss and shoot >>> hot wax all over my on my wall, bed, floor and most obviously, my dignity.

Cue Silvia.

She had returned from the kitchen.

Pew pew, go Silvia!

Holding a towel with valiance, ready to desperately “beat” the flame down in hopes of using another text-book tactic we assumed would work.

THERE SHE BLOWS!

But.

The flame originated so deep within the candle, that with every beat down, the candle got

closer and closer to the edge of my dresser.

Prompting me to yell

“STOP! STOP!”

With zero self control to the only person who was making an active effort to do anything at all.

And then I said.

“MOVE ASIDE…I got this.”

MOM. CHECK ME OUT. MOM PLEASE.

And I can’t explain it.

But for some reason it just made sense.

I grabbed my bath towel. Demanded Silvia

op         en

my window. Threw the bath towel over the candle

And flung the fucking thing out the damn window.

WHERE IT 

RICOCHETED

OFF OF MY FIRE ESCAPE

And back towards my apartment where we slammed down the window just in damn time.

Oh yeah.

Mere moments later, we peeked our heads between our hands and out the blackened window.

And there it was.

The demon candle.

Sparking and eXpLoDiNg wax like a complete psychopath until it finally simmered the fuck down:

This bitch.

“What in the hell just happened?” Silvia asked with valid reason.

“I don’t know…I thought it was because it ran out of wax and started sparking because of the glass at the bottom…but there’s a lot of wax left in that thing…”

“Cool…so…let’s not tell mom.”

“Works for me.”

“Cool. T.V?”

“T.V.”

And we never talked about it again.

Minus the time I wrote an essay on it and posted it on the internet.

Good times, good times.