These are birthday candles. I bought them on December 27, 2005, at the Food Emporium at Union Square in New York for my husband’s birthday cake, but forgot to use them at the birthday party. We had a cake, but I forgot to put the candles on it. I guess that the candles expired then the day after his birthday. These were specifically for my husband’s birthday cake, so it was never intended for anyone else’s birthday. I just didn’t feel like re-using them for other birthdays. Since then, they’ve been in my bedroom.

There is in an office building, and behind one of the doors on the tenth floor all the lights are turned out except for the tiny waving flames of twenty-four white birthday candles. Guests’ faces glow under their cone birthday hats, and they gather around a lovely birthday cake singing songs. The inscription on the cake says in cursive chocolate lettering: Happy Birthday to Everything and Everyone, Now.. Everyone claps and dances, and the candlelights dance, too. Twenty-four white birthday candles are about to be blown out.