Before making his forty-seventh candle wish; Danial’s silvering lashes fold in utter contentment as friends and loved ones gather around, and lovingly pat him on the shoulders and back, cheering him on.

Smiling happily, he fantasizes about getting laid after the festive celebrations.

He hopes, he wishes, Candice (Candy) from ‘Zsa Zsa Escort Service’ might be the one to highlight his late evening escapade of fun.

As he dallies in lustful daydream of Candy scantily clad, handcuffed to his bedposts; he fails to notice the fading sound of laughter and mirth among the small intimate crowd of friends, and family happily celebrating his special day of birth.

So, lo and behold, when he opens his ardent amber eyes, he discovers to his horror; friends and family have all disappeared.

Without a trace of a living soul; there’s nothing to see, or hear; whilst instead, a pressing darkness creeps stealthily in shading his sister’s cozy living room in, shadows of deepened gloom. 

Accompanying the blackness, mortal silence rides it back, slipping delicately between Danial’s ears; unsettling his thoughts, heightening his fear; as he strains to grasp a tiny hint, a glimpse, of any familiar sound, or face.

Anxiously eyeing the enveloping black; he trembles in its stillness, as his weakened knees slightly give, knocking loudly against rising waves of panic; and amplified feeling of impending dread.

Yet, oddly enough, when his fretful eyes by happenstance, fall upon the dark chocolaty iced devil's food cake, his sister Delilah specially ordered, for his surprise birthday celebration; [It] out of the blue, offers semblance of solace.

Although short-lived, it offers a gentle reprieve, that allows Danial to collect his thoughts unselfishly towards concern for his beloved sister, and speculation to her possible whereabouts:—Yet, [It] too, his loving concern; is cut-short, as he notices his birthday cake brightly glowing, miraculously haloed from above.

Within the unfolding of these unnatural events, vintage carnival sound surfaces sailing upon electrified air echoing Merry-Go-Round music, “_Over The Waves, Calliope.”_

Pleasantly seized by the warmth of nostalgia, Danial muses, “Why, I recall that tune as a boy,” he reflects smiling, noticing the sweetening spiced scent of candy apples, and pink cotton candy infusing the atmosphere, as a delicate shower of twinkling gilt glitter lightly cascade.

Softly the glitter swirls overhead, drifting casually into Danial’s graying-blonde hair, bathing his face, his clothes, almost wickedly.

Part of his consciousness ascends, elevating his body and feet above the hardwood floor.

He laughs childlike as he watches himself, floating peacefully amid sparkling candlelight and the falling shimmer, that cast breathless brilliance upon his forty-seven years of being.

However, the fleeting dulcet illusion, is also cut-short, when he’s rudely awakened by his other half of consciousness, which is floundering in alarming panic.

Imagining he’s losing his mind, he calls out distressed:

“H-E-L-L-O, YOO-HOO, WHERE’D Y'ALL GO??”

Frantically looking around, struggling to see beyond endless nothingness, beyond stone creepiness, he nervously shouts out for a second time:

“Hey, guys … this ain’t funny, come on now, fun’s over.  Come out, come out wherever you are… Haha,” He, halfheartedly, jokes; his disappointment deepening, mounting, growing in stillness.

Only the fading irregular sputter of fading candlelight echoes noisily, until an inexplicable sightless breeze unseen, arrives in flurries of “whoosh-whoosh” echoing, darting, in and out breaking the quiet.

Upon which, a cold emergence of an exceedingly tall, slender figure clad in a black hooded robe with scythe in hand, appears.

Instead of a scream, Danial lets outs a loud resounding utterance of acceptance, _“Alas, ‘to be or not to be’ I am woefully fucked,”_ whilst bearing in mind, Hamlet’s lone plight with sarcastic sadness, and placid smile of understanding, and knowingness.

Gliding stealthily, the wavering dark misty apparition void of features, seems to sinisterly grin knowing Danial’s mind.

Advancing slowly from the remotest corner of the darkened room, the Grim Reaper enlarges threefold with profound telepathic presence, whilst gliding forward.

Nearing only as far as need be, he conveys a colorless edict:

“Danial.  It’s time to blow out your candles,” he commands in an inscrutable voice of polite, menacing power.

Dawdling half-crazed, mostly in sorrowful regret, Danial, obediently bends over the last sputtering candle flame:—and makes his dying wish.

_*(A belated happy candle-wish, to the Co-founder.)_