The Candles at the Edge of a Solar Farm
Category B: First Place (2025) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Mikayla Savundranayagam
In the final days, the world ran on candlelight and static.
They met again on the edge of an old solar farm, shattered glass lay on the floor, scattered like stale bread meant for ducks.
They brought what remained:
Two cigarettes
And a melting candle
*
The peak of humanity, as they called it
The world moved like a well-oiled machine - ergonomic and frictionless
Evolution and electricity made humanity monotonous, society bland.
Then it happened
The solar flare-
Not divine intervention. Not operatic. Just inconvenient
A polite cough from a burning god
It tore across the sky like a divine typo
The satellites, choked, and fell out of orbit, shooting stars no one wished upon
The internet coughed once, then vanished
The world forgot its password.
So the collapse began, slow but inevitable, not with an explosion, but with the silent death of life as it once was.
*
They sat at the edge of an old solar farm, the air smelling of smoke and the wrong kind of nostalgia.
The candle flickered between them, casting soft shadows on tired faces
“You never liked smoking,” she said, lips curved into the ghost of a smile.
“I grew out of it, stupid phase, honestly,” he chuckled, exhaling smoke.
The embers fell down the side of the cliff, illuminating the darkness
“You were always growing out of things,” she said. Her voice almost fragile. “Myself included.”
He just watched the candle burn.
*
The solar farm was a carcass
Once a monument to clean futures, now ruins.
Panels split like fingernails.
Inverters bleached white
Fires dotted hills now, some intentional, some not.
Nature was confused. Bears wandered into abandoned tech stores
Fish tried to migrate through broken desalination plants
The candles burned.
They lit up hollow houses
Hospitals that had forgotten how to beep
They stood in for nightlights and gods
Once reserved for birthdays and blackouts,now lining windowpanes like polite little soldiers - symbols of man’s last flickering attempt to choreograph nature
Earth's last customer service line.
An apology in wax
*
He shifted closer, arms brushing hers. She didn't move away.
“I kept your letters,” he says, his voice cracking.
“I thought you deleted everything”
“Not the physical things,” he said, eyes focused on the ground.” Not the letters you gave me while I was in the hospital. The ones with your messy cursive and tea stains”
She turned to him, eyes shining in the candlelight.“Those were nothing.”
“They were everything”
A pause.
“I didn’t think you cared that much”
“I’ve always cared,” his voice was so low it barely touched the air.
*
No one knew who started the countdown.
Everyone agreed it was merciful
Hospitals whispered final codes into the dark.
Birds flew south. Out of habit, not hope
Gravity weakened in patches, children floated like wayward balloons, laughing until fear kicked in.
People wept in supermarkets. Not because there was no food left, but because there were still price tags.
Candles sat in windows, balanced on the dashboards of abandoned cars.
Not like protests,
Lullabies.
Gentle flames illuminated a world once so fast-paced and erratic,
Now ridden with acceptance and guilt, as humanity gathered around a flame of remorse - small, flickering, and far too late
*
She tilted her head up to the flickering sky
“Do you think we would have made it if you followed me to Berlin?” she asked,
“Do you think Berlin still exists?” he replied, letting the question hang
“That’s not an answer,” she said, smiling faintly
“It’s the only one I have”
The candle was burning out. Its flame had grown small, as if it, too, were tired of holding on.
“If I’d followed you to Berlin,” his voice more careful. “Would you have ever stopped trying to fix things before they were broken?”
She laughed quietly, “I didn’t know how”
“It’s okay, I understand why you did it now.”
“Do you regret it?”
“What?”
“Not coming with me.”
“Sometimes”
*
The moon refused to come out,
embarrassed to witness the end of it all.
Darkness thickened to a velvety stillness,
a deliberate hush.
Now, the world was lit only by the soft, apologetic glow of small flames.
People sat in their living rooms,
surrounded by silence thick enough to chew,
The flickering shadows of their candlelight mimicking the lives they used to live.
Not quite echoes. Not quite ghosts.
Just rehearsals.
They ate dinner cold and deliberately, using the good cutlery.
Some folded laundry that would never be worn again,
socks without feet, shirts without meetings.
Children lined up old remote controls like bones,
held funerals for batteries that had long since died.
There was no grief left.
Only imitation.
These were the rituals of being alive.
*
Their eyes grew glassy in the amber light,
“I forget what your voice sounds like over the phone”
“I forget what a ringtone sounds like”
Wind pressed against buildings. Somewhere distant, glass shattered silently.
“I remember your laugh. Not the big one. The small one.”
“The one I only did around you?”
“Yeah”
“It’s still here somewhere”
The candle flickered as the wind blew harshly,
The broken solar panels, singing in broken notes
“I’m sorry I didn’t go after you,” he said suddenly
“I'm sorry I waited for you to.”
*
The world cracked open softly, no bang or siren, just the silent peeling back of existence.
*
They sat cross-legged, as if waiting for a bus that would never come. Two shadows in a world gone dim.
No kiss. No grand declarations. Just the warmth of a shoulder and the comfort of shared silence
“Do you still love me?”
His voice was hoarse, like a song forgotten halfway through
She stared. Her eyes searching his, not for answers, but for memories
“Sometimes”
“Do you regret it?”
“No.”She looked up at the swirling sky, the stars blinking like tired eyes. “I just wish we had more time before it started running out”
The wind smelled like vanilla and sorrow
And when the last candle flickered and died, it felt like forgiveness.