The Candle That Burnt Darkness (Το Κερί που Έκαψε το Σκοτάδι)

-From the Meletic Tales.

In the cragged hills of Icaria, where the Aegean winds howled like ancestral whispers and the sea sang its endless lullaby far below, there stood a cave known only to those visitors who wandered without direction. It was not marked upon any map, nor spoken of by the villagers who tended to their olives and goats below, yet for those who bore a weight too heavy for the road, the cave called in silence.

It was here that a hermit lived—although none could say his name or origin. Some people believed he had once been a genuine scholar who had grown tired of the world's clamour. Others said he was a sailor who had lost his love to the sea and retreated from the tide of grief. Still others claimed he had always been a part of the land, like a stone that had risen from the earth with thought instead of moss.

He tended to no crops, yet he did not starve. He spoke with no one, yet he was not lonely. He lit no fires by day and burnt no oil by night, yet in the mouth of his cave, a candle was always burning.

This was no ordinary candle. It did not melt with time, nor flicker against the winds that slipped through the stone. Its light was soft, not dazzling, but it radiated a unique warmth that was neither of fire nor sun. The villagers who caught sight of it from afar called it foolishness or folklore. They named it To kerí pou ekaipse to skotadi—The candle that burnt the darkness.

Few seekers ever climbed the slope to seek it. Fewer still returned. One such soul, however, came one evening, his coat torn from bramble and his eyes hollow from wandering. His name was Thalios, a mason’s son from the western reaches of the island, although it had been many months since he last laid eyes on stone or hearth.

Thalios had left his village to escape a sorrow that would not cease. His brother had perished in a quarry accident, and the echo of the memorable stone’s collapse seemed to follow him in every quiet place. His sleep was broken by certain dreams of falling dust. His waking hours filled with instant guilt he could not explain—had he not been the one who encouraged his brother to seek work there? Had he not carved the path that led to that fatal point on that day?

He had sought solace in temples, in sea-washed shrines clinging to cliffs, in the words of old philosophers etched into ruins, but nothing calmed the unrest within. So he walked.

By the time he stumbled upon the mouth of the cave, the sun had sunk behind the hill's curve and shadows had begun their quiet dominion. The light of the candle drew his eye—not for its brightness, but for the stillness it seemed to promise.

The hermit, as if sensing the traveller's presence, emerged from within. He was not what Thalios had imagined. His beard was silver but tidy, his robe plain but clean. His eyes were the colour of ash after fire, yet not empty.

'You come with heavy feet', the hermit said, not unkindly.

Thalios bowed his head. 'I seek only shelter for the night. The darkness behind me is long'.

The hermit stepped aside, gesturing towards the candle. 'Then let the light receive you'.

Inside, the cave was simple—no more than stone and stillness, but the candle’s glow filled the space with a curious warmth. Thalios sank beside it, letting his limbs rest upon a woollen mat that smelt faintly of thyme and smoke.

The hermit offered him a bowl of water and a small loaf of bread. They ate in silence.

After some time, Thalios spoke. 'This light… it does not burn the way other candles do'.

'No. It burns not wax, but what lies beneath one', the hermit said.

Thalios frowned uncertain of the hermit's words. 'What do you mean?'

The hermit did not answer at once. He lifted the candle and placed it nearer to the traveller. 'Stay by it. Let it see you. If you carry darkness, you will know'.

Thalios watched the flame. It did not waver or move, yet something inside him stirred, like the soft drawing away of a curtain. Then—he felt it.

It began with a pressure in his chest, like fingers unfastening a clasp long kept closed. A warmth moved through him—not from the outside, but from somewhere deep, a buried hearth reigniting. The shadows in his mind, once so tightly wound, began to dissolve like the mist in morning light.

His breath slow down. Awe, unbidden, slipped down his cheeks. He tried to speak, to apologise and to explain himself—but no words could be expressed. Only the weight, the sorrow, the twisting guilt began to lift, thread by aching thread.

He saw his brother’s face—not crushed beneath stone, but laughing by the river. He remembered their childhood—not as a contrast to grief, but as a living echo still within him. He felt, for the first time in many months that his brother had not been entirely lost as he had thought. The candle burnt. Not a single drop of wax fell.

When dawn crept over the hills, Thalios sat as if returned from a long voyage. The hermit remained across the cave, eyes closed in quiet reflection as he meditated.

'I do not understand', Thalios whispered.

'You do not need to. You have allowed the flame to do what it must do', the hermit responded.

'What is it, truly that I must know?'

The hermit pondered. 'Some people say it is born of the first fire of the Logos—the one that lit the stars that were formed by the Nous. Others believe it is the soul of one who burnt so brightly in life that his light could not be extinguished. I believe it is a mirror of the soul'.

'A mirror?'

'It shows us what we carry in the soul—and consumes what was never meant to be held by the self'.

Thalios gazed at the flame, now gentler in the morning's pale shine. 'Can others see it also?'

'They may, if they are ready'.

'Why do you guard it, as if was sacred?'

'I do not guard it. I merely serve it. There is a difference', the hermit smiled faintly.

Thalios remained another day, then another. He helped sweep the cave, gathered herbs from the hillside, and listened to the wind amongst the stones. The hermit spoke rarely, but when he did, his words were like spring water—clear, cold and deep.

He taught Thalios how to meditate upon the burning flame. How to still the thoughts that moved like bees in the mind. How to breathe with intention, not just for survival but for understanding.

He taught him the wise words of the old philosophers—not as riddles or recitations, but as guides to contemplation. He spoke of To Ena—the One—and the way all things returned to it in time. He spoke of the soul not as a fixed shape, but as a river seeking the ocean of truth. And always, the candle burnt.

One winter evening, a woman arrived. Her name was Kleoniki, a weaver’s daughter whose village lay to the east. She had run from the grief that wore the face of betrayal. Her betrothed, once gentle and kind, had turned cruel in voice and fist. She escaped in silence beneath moonlight, the bruises still fresh upon her skin.

The hermit welcomed her without question. Thalios brought her bread and warmth. She sat before the candle, uncertain or her fate.

'I fear it will see too much', she murmured.

'It sees only truth, and it offers no judgement', the hermit told her.

Thus, she stayed the night, and the next. By the third evening, she sat alone with the candle, her hand resting near its base. She wept—not from weakness, but from a strength finally allowed to speak. When she rose again, her gaze was steadier. Not whole, but healing.

Others came, scattered by fate or pain. A boy whose parents had perished in fire. An old fisherman who had lost his sense of true purpose. A scholar whose knowledge had become a burden too vast to bear in life.

All found their way to the cave. Not through directions, but through need. And always, the candle burnt.

When the hermit’s time came, it came softly. One evening, he sat beside the candle as always, and with a final breath, his eyes closed, not in death, but in return. Thalios buried him beneath the olive tree just outside, where roots would wrap him in the language of the earth.

The candle flickered that night—for the first time, but it did not go out.

Thalios took the hermit’s place. Not in name, but in purpose. He became the listener. The guide. The keeper of the light that needed no oil.

The years passed, as years must. When Thalios too faded into stillness, it was Kleoniki who lit the morning incense, who spoke the first quiet words to the next lost traveller who came to the cave.

Still, the candle burnt. It burnt not for one, but for all. The darkness, however long it wandered, always met its apparent end in that quiet flame.

Over time, stories of the candle found their way beyond the hills. Poets in Samos wrote verses about the fire that knew sorrow. Visitors came not just from Icaria, but from Athens, Delos, even distant Rhodes. None could take the candle. Those who tried found only silence. The flame did not belong to hands, but to souls.

Kleoniki aged, as all must. Her steps grew slower, her voice gentler, but the candle never diminished. A child born in the cave during a stormy night—named Photios, meaning 'light bearer'—would one day sit where she had. He would listen to the broken-hearted and show them the way to sit with the flame.

Each keeper added something: a stone carved with a reflection, a poem left by a traveller, a bowl of sea salt for protection. The cave changed with them, but the heart remained—the candle.

One moonless night, a traveller arrived who could not speak. His hands trembled with grief too long carried. He wrote nothing. He only knelt before the candle and wept. The flame, soft and still, warmed his trembling shadow until the sobs subsided. He stayed a fortnight and left without a word, but a garland of laurel was found on the candle’s base the morning after. Still, the candle burnt.

Some say it was the gods who placed it there. Others believe it is the final ember of Prometheus’ fire, meant not to teach man craft or power, but healing. A fire not to forge weapons, but to melt chains.

To those people who lived and died by its light and became Meletics, they knew of its actual origin. What mattered was the truth it gave them. That no darkness, no despair, no grief could survive long in the presence of a soul willing to be seen. The cave remains.

If you find yourself in Icaria, follow not the roads, but the quiet ache in your heart. It may lead you to a trail overgrown and narrow. Walk it with care. At its end, should you find the cave and see the light waiting, step inside.

You may find, like so many before you that the darkness within can be burnt—not with hatred or fear, but with understanding and consciousness Should you kneel beside the candle and weep, you will not be alone. You will be seen, and still, the candle will burn as always.

'In every sorrow lies a seed. In every light, the courage to let it grow'—A Meletic truth.

One spring evening, long after Photios had become a silver-haired guide and the world outside the cave had changed in countless ways, a young woman named Kalliope arrived. She was unlike most who sought the cave—curious more than broken, her eyes wide not with grief but with unanswered questions. She had heard of the candle from an old sailor who’d spent the night beneath a dock in Naxos whispering strange legends.

She did not speak as she entered, nor did she weep. She simply sat in front of the candle and gazed. Hours passed. The shadows of birds crossed the cave walls. The wind sighed in olive branches above. Still, she remained, unmoving and immersed in silent dialogue with the lit flame.

When she finally rose, she approached Photios and asked, 'What is it that burns when there is no fuel?'

He smiled. 'What cannot be seen, but is always carried. The weight you did not know you bore before'.

'What if I carry no sorrow with me?' She asked.

'You carry wonder, and wonder must also be understood', he answered.

She stayed for weeks, not to heal but to learn. She gathered the wise words of those seekers who came and went, wrote their stories in a quiet book bound in reed and twine. Some she read aloud beside the candle, and the flame never once diminished.

When the day came for her to leave, she left behind a single sentence etched into the cave wall: 'To be seen by the light is not to vanish, but to become'.

Thus, the cave became more than refuge. It became a living memory. A place not just to shed sorrow, but to discover self. A place of rebirth, and still, the candle burnt.

One final tale, known to few, was that of a blind man named Eudikimos who arrived one winter evening, his steps sure despite the snow. He had heard of the cave from the songs of shepherds and made the journey over days with only a carved staff and the memory of starlight in his dreams.

When he sat before the candle, he asked nothing. He said only, 'Although I cannot see, I have felt the darkness within me present'.

The candle’s glow touched him, not through eyes, but through the soul. He sang that night—an old hymn forgotten by most. A song of unity and of the soul's eternal seeking.

His voice carried through the cave and out into the night, where the stars listened. In the morning, he had gone, but his song remained. Visitors claimed they could hear it faintly when the wind moved just so—like a flame that hummed.

As the seasons turned, and the faces of keepers changed, the cave endured, and still, the candle burnt.

Some who came left behind tokens—a pebble from a distant shore, a strand of woven hair, a feather from a bird once trapped and now free. Others brought offerings of silence, letting their presence alone be the gift. One child, too young to speak, placed a drawing beside the candle of what he later called 'the light that eats the cold'.

In all these gestures, the flame remained constant, unjudging and unflickering. It bore witness to the fullness of humanity—not only its wounds but its wonders also.

Perhaps that is why it never ceased. It did not exist to undo pain alone, but to illuminate the personal space between what we suffer and what we become. Even now, the story continues.

Somewhere on Ikaria, in a cave that does not shift with time, the candle still burns. Waiting—not for the lost, but for the willing. To those persons who dare step ahead, the darkness they carry shall not be feared. For the light is ready, and still, it burns.

Waiting—not for the lost, but for the willing.

To those persons who dare step forth, the darkness they carry shall not be feared. For the light is ready, and still, it burns.

If you should find it—not by compass, but by instinct—you will know the place not by sign or inscription, but by the silence that welcomes rather than excludes. Step softly, and do not speak too soon. Sit, and listen. The candle does not rush.

It may begin with a memory—a face you thought forgotten, a kindness never repaid. Or perhaps it will show you a wound you never dared to call by name. Let it. The flame does not judge.

Those people who stay long enough will find their inner sky clearing, as if clouds had quietly stepped aside. They will rise, not as someone new, but as someone whole.

When they leave, they take nothing—save the knowing that they are no longer carrying what once consumed them.

Still, the candle burns. Not for glory. Not for gods. For the soul that is ready to see itself. In light.

Still, the cave welcomes. In spring, herbs bloom gently at its mouth—thyme, sage, and wild marjoram—as if nature herself bows to the flame within. Birds sometimes nest near the entrance, unafraid, as if even creatures feel the quiet sanctity.

Some people who leave never return—but they carry the story with them, passing it like a whispered thread. They become keepers in their own way—lighting candles in dark corners of the world, offering stillness to those in need, bearing witness to sorrow not with answers, but with presence.

The cave breathes on, a heart in the hills, eternal as stone, gentle as morning. Still, the candle burns.

And so it continued. Not with proclamations or thunder, but with breath and light. The cave became more than a shelter—it became a threshold. Between burden and release, fear and courage, illusion and truth.

In time, the villagers began to speak of it again, even though never with certainty. They would point towards the hills and say, ‘There is a place where sorrow is burnt like smoke, and the wind carries it away’. They did not visit. They did not need to. It was enough to know it existed.

Some people say that the candle has changed little over the years—that its flame is just as steady, just as silent. Others claim that when night falls deepest, it flickers not with wind, but with the memories of those it has healed—each flare a soul unburdened.

A traveller once asked the hermit, now aged and serene, how long the candle would continue to burn.

He answered, ‘As long as there is one heart that needs to see itself clearly. As long as there is one shadow hiding the light within.’

And with that, he turned back to the flame—watching, not guarding—as it continued to burn the darkness.

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