“Father, don’t you see I’m burning?”

A father lies sleeping, weighed down by grief. After a sickbed vigil lasting many days, his beloved young son has died, and his body is laid out in the next room. Having hired an older man to watch over the boy, the father has allowed himself to lie down and rest, leaving the door ajar. He has fallen asleep, and dreams an uncanny dream: his boy is alive, and is tugging him by the arm. The boy whispers urgently, desolately, “Father, don’t you see I’m burning?” The father startles awake to see a bright light flickering in the doorway. He runs to the adjacent room to find that one of the candles set up next to his son’s body has fallen, burning one of the arms. The old watchman has fallen asleep.