The Hundred Candles #SixSentenceStories&CRLC

The Hundred Candles is inspired by the May 21 Carrot Ranch prompt, but it started out as a Six Sentence Story of 297 words. Though I hadn’t intended to, I went ahead and whittled that down to 99 words. This week’s SSS prompt word is “right” and both versions also include last week’s prompt word, “eternal”, as if that makes up for me missing out on the six sentence fun last week. Denise is the prompter for Six Sentence Story time and the link will be open Wednesday evening at GirlieOntheEdge. For the Carrot Ranch prompt to “write a story about a hundred candles”, respond by May 26, 2020. Use the comment section to share, read, and be social. You may leave a link, pingback, or story in the comments. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form.

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(Six Sentences, 297 words)

All the old stories — Since time began, the stories always started— were as much about all the Sovereigns upholding their duties and making ceremony over the keeping of these little eternal flames as they were about The Hundred Candles themselves.

At one time anyone with even a modest education could recite what each candle represented and even now most people at least recalled that they had to do with ancient ways, ancient heroes, and longstanding mores and morals.

Nobody really believed anymore that the tradition of the Sovereign keeping The Hundred Candles burning was anything more than just that, tradition; nobody actually believed that if the Sovereign failed to maintain this tradition ill fate would befall the people; nor did they believe a Sovereign would ever not keep this custom.

When the people put into power a Sovereign that was not like the others they weren’t bothered that his pride was not in their traditions but in himself; he was different and they felt a thirst for change, felt emboldened by his pride; some even cheered when he said, “The Hundred Candles are just any old candles, ordinary candles that burn out and get replaced, so the right thing to do is to not waste one more candle or one more minute on this ridiculous pastime.”

One by one The Hundred Candles sputtered out, and even though the sun still rose and set, and the birds and flowers still brightened the land, there was a darkness felt as an invisible enemy silently snuffed the lives of the people, one here, one there, more and more, adding up to hundreds of hundreds dead.

There are few left to recount the circumstances of that time, but the stories always begin, When time stopped and the world forever changed-

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(99 words)

Since time began, the stories always started— the old stories about the keeping of these little eternal flames, The Hundred Candles. Though the details and specifics were largely forgotten, most people still recalled that the candles had to do with ancient ways and longstanding mores.

Nobody actually believed anymore that if the Sovereign failed to keep The Hundred Candles burning ill fate would befall the people; neither did they believe a Sovereign would ever not keep this custom.

The few left to recount the circumstances of that time begin their stories, When time stopped and the world forever changed-