It took me a minute to notice the smoke. There was a divider, a partial "wall" that extended from the real wall, didn't quite reach the ceiling, to separate the bathroom facilities from the rest of the room; there was no door. So from behind the partition, doing something at the sink I suppose, finally I smelled smoke and then realized the room was full of it, a big cloud, smoke. The small emergency candle, having finished its wick, would have gone out completely had it not set the clear plastic cup, which contained it, on fire. Who would contain a candle in a plastic cup? Yes, I realized the same question about the same moment that I noticed the night table flaming (and I'm not talking about singing along w/ Barbara Streisand). Fortunately for me and everyone else paid up for the night, they think about people like me when "they" are fire-proofing motel rooms in the first place. Once I cleaned up the millions of bits of ash (the remains of the cup) that had spread themselves around the room, and scraped off the wax caked to the top of the night stand, and aired the place out, it looked as if I had never tried to get myself put in jail for arson, at all.