Settling down into the chair, the breeze somewhere outside in the dark, amid faraway shouts and stars. Light up a candle, faint wisps of light sprinkling the walls. I turn my chair a little towards the door.

What moves me to move my chair there? Staring straight ahead, the candlelight dances in double vision, blurry in the pale reflection of the door's glass. I sink into this scene - the real candle calling out at the edge of my vision. I stare into the reflection, lose myself in its vagaries.

Shift. My mind puts my emotions from the day into the same scene. All the stress and puzzlement, the bewilderment and exasperation. Then all the amusement and hilarity, kindness and caring. They become one with the mirrored candle flame, so real and yet so distant, an echo of something else, somewhere else.

Is the candle in the glass part of the candle, or of where I'm sitting? Are the emotions I've built up part of me, or my day?

Shifting my head left, the flickering image hides out of sight, lost around a corner. Shifting my head back again, it reappears without a thought.

Outside, bulbous clouds roll in over the pinprick stars.