Tales from the Universe
Moral Dilemma: If you have the power to spare someone you love from pain, failure, and hardship, when does helping them become an act of care—and when does removing every obstacle quietly take their life out of their own hands?
Sena’s first wish was for her daughter.
Not herself.
She considered this evidence of good character.
Later, she became less certain.
Her daughter, Mara, was nine.
She had a mathematics examination.
She was terrified.
Not ordinary nervousness.
Crying.
Stomachache.
Could not sleep.
Sena sat beside her.
“You studied.”
“I’ll forget.”
“You know this.”
“I’ll fail.”
“And if you fail?”
Mara looked horrified.
Sena realized she had asked the wrong question.
That evening Sena walked to the market.
An old woman sold candles from a cart.
Normal candles.
Blue.
White.
Yellow.
Then one black candle.
Sena picked it up.
“How much?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“What do you want removed?”
Sena laughed.
The woman didn’t.
The candle removed difficulties.
One difficulty.
Light it.
Name the person.
Name the obstacle.
The obstacle disappears.
Sena stared.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“Why are you selling this beside onions?”
“Good foot traffic.”
Reasonable.
Sena bought it.
Obviously.
That night:
“Mara.”
Flame.
“Her fear of tomorrow’s examination.”
The candle went out.
The next morning Mara ate breakfast calmly.
“How do you feel?”
“Fine.”
“About the examination?”
“Fine.”
“No fear?”
“No.”
Sena smiled.
Wonderful.
Mara failed.
Badly.
Sena stared at the paper.
“How?”
Mara shrugged.
“I didn’t study last night.”
“You studied all week.”
“Yeah.”
“You knew this.”
“I guess.”
“Why didn’t you check your answers?”
“Didn’t think I needed to.”
Sena stopped.
The fear had been miserable.
It had also been doing something.
She returned to the candle seller.
“You tricked me.”
“No.”
“My daughter failed.”
“You asked me to remove fear.”
“Yes.”
“Was she afraid?”
“No.”
“Excellent product.”
Sena should have stopped.
Instead she became more precise.
Her husband hated his job.
His supervisor humiliated him.
Sena lit the candle.
“Remove Hale’s cruel supervisor.”
The next morning the supervisor received a promotion.
Transferred.
Hale celebrated.
Three months later he was promoted into the vacant position.
Higher salary.
Better hours.
Excellent.
Her son Pell was being bullied.
This one felt different.
No lesson needed.
No growth required.
A larger boy hit him almost daily.
Sena lit the candle.
“Remove the boy who hurts Pell.”
The bully’s family moved.
Pell came home smiling.
Sena felt no guilt.
Good.
Some obstacles deserved removal.
This became important.
Years passed.
Sena learned to use the candle carefully.
Illness.
Debt.
Dangerous people.
Bad teachers.
Missed opportunities.
Whenever someone she loved encountered difficulty, Sena asked:
Could I remove this?
Increasingly:
Why wouldn’t I?
Mara wanted to enter the Royal College.
One place remained.
Twenty-three applicants.
Sena lit the candle.
“Remove the obstacles preventing Mara’s admission.”
The next day three applicants withdrew.
One became ill.
Two missed the examination because a carriage axle broke.
Mara received the place.
Sena felt sick.
She had not asked for anyone to be harmed.
The candle had simply arranged reality.
Mara was ecstatic.
“I did it!”
Sena hugged her.
“Yes.”
The word tasted strange.
At college Mara struggled.
Everyone was brilliant.
She had never learned how to fail well.
Whenever she performed poorly, she panicked.
Sena removed difficult professors.
Bad roommates.
Financial problems.
A failed course.
Mara’s life smoothed.
Her confidence grew.
So did something else.
She began believing things always worked out for her.
Because they did.
Pell noticed.
“She’s becoming unbearable.”
“She’s confident.”
“She thinks consequences are weather that happens to other people.”
“That is cruel.”
“Is it wrong?”
Sena became angry.
Mostly because it wasn’t.
Then Pell started a business.
It failed.
Sena reached for the candle.
Stopped.
Pell was devastated.
Savings gone.
Two employees lost jobs.
He moved home.
For six months he was miserable.
Sena could fix it.
Every night the candle sat in the cabinet.
Every night she did nothing.
It felt like neglect.
Then Pell began again.
Smaller.
He called former customers.
Asked why they had left.
Listened.
Changed the product.
Learned accounting.
Apologized to his employees.
One returned.
The second business survived.
Barely.
Then grew.
Years later Pell said:
“That failure was the best thing that happened to me.”
Sena nearly threw soup at him.
“You were miserable.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t leave your room for weeks.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were dying.”
“I know.”
“And now you’re grateful?”
“Not for the pain.”
He thought.
“For what I learned because nobody could make it disappear.”
Sena looked toward the cabinet.
He did not know.
Mara graduated.
Top honors.
Naturally.
She became a magistrate.
At thirty-one she made a terrible ruling.
A family lost their home.
Mara had overlooked evidence.
The appeal court reversed her decision.
Public criticism followed.
Mara collapsed.
Not literally.
Internally.
She stopped working.
Stopped eating properly.
Sena visited.
Mara cried.
“I can’t do this.”
“You made a mistake.”
“I ruin people’s lives.”
“You corrected it.”
“The appeal court corrected it.”
Sena held her.
The candle waited at home.
What obstacle should she remove?
The criticism?
The guilt?
The family who complained?
The professional review?
Mara’s memory of the mistake?
Sena realized with horror that she could probably remove all of them.
Then Mara would feel better.
And perhaps remain exactly the magistrate who made the ruling.
Sena left the candle unlit.
She stayed instead.
Cooked.
Listened.
Said very little.
Mara returned to work.
Slowly.
She apologized to the family.
They did not forgive her.
That hurt.
She changed how she reviewed evidence.
Asked colleagues to challenge her conclusions.
Became more careful.
Less certain.
Better.
One evening Mara said:
“I used to think confidence meant not doubting yourself.”
Sena smiled.
“And now?”
“I think sometimes doubt is quality control.”
Sena laughed.
Then cried.
Mara stared.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Sena finally told her children about the candle.
Both thought she was joking.
Then Pell became furious.
“You did what?”
Mara went pale.
“My admission?”
“Yes.”
“You changed it?”
“I removed obstacles.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t completely know.”
“Did I earn my place?”
Sena could not answer.
Mara stood.
“You let me believe I did.”
“You were qualified.”
“That isn’t the same question.”
“I wanted to help you.”
“I know.”
Mara started crying.
“That makes it worse.”
Pell asked:
“What did you change for me?”
“The boy who hit you.”
He stopped.
“That was you?”
“Yes.”
Pell sat.
After a while:
“Thank you.”
Mara turned.
“You’re thanking her?”
“He was hurting me.”
“So?”
“So I’m glad he stopped.”
Sena watched them.
There it was.
No simple rule.
Again.
“What else?” Pell asked.
Sena told them.
Everything.
Some they appreciated.
Some they hated.
Some nobody could decide.
Hale’s supervisor?
Probably good.
College?
Mara remained angry for years.
A childhood illness Sena shortened?
Nobody objected.
A failed romance Sena had quietly ended by arranging distance between Mara and a cruel boyfriend?
Mara objected violently.
“He was terrible,” Sena said.
“He was mine to leave.”
That sentence stayed.
They decided to destroy the candle.
Then Sena became ill.
Her physician said treatment might work.
Might not.
Painful.
Months.
Pell looked at the candle.
Mara did too.
Sena laughed.
“Oh, that’s unpleasant.”
“Can we use it?” Pell asked.
“No.”
“You used it on us.”
“Yes.”
“So let us.”
“No.”
Mara stared.
“Why?”
“Because I finally understand what you’re asking.”
“We’re asking to save you.”
“I know.”
“Then?”
Sena looked at the candle.
“What would you remove?”
“The illness.”
“What if removing it gives it to someone else?”
Silence.
“What if the obstacle is the physician who hasn’t discovered the treatment yet?”
Silence.
“What if it removes the months by removing me?”
“Mother.”
“The candle obeys language, not love.”
Pell became angry.
“You don’t get to spend our whole lives changing things and suddenly become philosophical when you’re the one in danger.”
Sena laughed.
“That is extremely fair.”
“Then let us use it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Sena looked at him.
“Because this one is mine.”
She took treatment.
It was awful.
The children helped.
They could not fix it.
This was new for all of them.
Some days Sena hated her own lesson.
Some days Pell nearly used the candle without permission.
Once Mara actually took it from the cabinet.
She held it for an hour.
Then returned it.
Sena recovered.
Mostly.
Nobody knew whether the treatment had cured her permanently.
Life refused guarantees.
Years later, the candle remained unused.
Not destroyed.
That surprised people.
“Why keep it?”
Mara asked.
Sena smiled.
“Because sometimes there really is a boy hitting your son.”
Eventually the candle passed to Mara.
Sena was old.
Mara held the black wax.
“I don’t want this.”
“Good.”
“That doesn’t seem like enough protection.”
“It isn’t.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Decide.”
Mara glared.
“You’ve become very irritating in old age.”
“I had obstacles removed.”
Sena touched her daughter’s hand.
“Help is not the problem.”
Mara listened.
“Sometimes remove the obstacle.”
“The bully.”
“Yes.”
“The illness.”
“If you can.”
“The cruel supervisor.”
“Perhaps.”
“College?”
Sena winced.
“Probably not.”
Mara smiled.
“How do I know?”
“You won’t always.”
Sena looked at the candle.
“But ask whether you’re removing something because it is harming them—or because watching them struggle is painful for you.”
Mara became quiet.
“Those can be the same.”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“Ask whose life you’re trying to make easier.”
After Sena died, Mara kept the candle.
For decades.
She used it twice.
She never told anyone what for.
Maybe that was wisdom.
Maybe cowardice.
Maybe privacy.
When Mara eventually passed it to her granddaughter, the candle was almost exactly the same size.
One black stick of wax.
Enough power to make almost anything easier.
Her granddaughter read the inscription Sena had carved into its base:
DO NOT CONFUSE A CLEAR PATH WITH A GOOD ONE.
Below it, Mara had added:
AND DO NOT CONFUSE SUFFERING WITH A LESSON.
The granddaughter turned the candle over.
Two warnings.
Pulling in opposite directions.
She smiled.
That seemed about right.
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