It lives on the mantel, or the back of the toilet tank, or the center of a table set for guests who have not yet arrived, positioned always for maximum visibility and minimum use. This is a candle purchased for its scent, its color, or the shape of its jar, and never once for the eventuality of fire. Its wick, still white, still perfectly waxed at the tip, has the particular pallor of a thing that has never been tested, no black char, no telltale pool of clear wax around its base, nothing to suggest that anyone has ever struck a match in its presence. Some are labeled decorative only by a manufacturer who understood its market better than its customers did.
The candle is dusted periodically and otherwise left alone, its fragrance, cedar, or fig, or something called quiet morning, appreciated exclusively through the lid, lifted and replaced in seconds, a ritual sniff that substitutes entirely for combustion. Ask its owner why it has never been lit and the answer arrives in fragments: it's too nice, it's for special occasions, I don't want to ruin it. The candle, for its part, will wait out every one of these special occasions as they fail to materialize, its wax level exactly where it started the day it was purchased, its wick standing at permanent attention for an order that will not come, a small white flag raised in a room that was never at war.