And so I'm sitting here looking at the cloudy night sky. It's a summer night in
Missouri, so right now my t-shirt is doing just fine. The last time I did this in fall and I damn near
froze to death.
But like I said, it was
cloudy out, so you can't really get the
spectacular view of the
stars that you can get on some nights.
I've got a
thermos filled with
cold chocolate soy milk...it's one of the many strange souvenir habits that she left me.
I look back up at the sky again. Still nothing. I'm pretty sure that tonight isn't a
new moon, so I should be able to see something. But there's not much of a
breeze tonight and the clouds seem intent on blocking my way. The very heavens were complicitous in not giving me what I want...but they had been from the start, hadn't they?
How did that
old story go? The
lovers were separated by thousands of miles, but at least they could both look up at the
night sky and see the same moon. But I quickly count the difference of hours, and right now it's ten in the morning over where she is. Damn. I was always
far too practical to be a romantic.
I take a bite out of uneaten pizza that I had found under the seat of my car and chase it down with a gulp of soy milk. The pizza didn't taste
rancid, which was always a good sign. If she were here, she definitely wouldn't have approved of this.
But she's not here.
Damn. I had been an
embittered college student when she had found me...and now that she's gone I'm an embittered college student once more. It was almost as if she had
never been here, and she had only left a month and a half ago. But I know she was here. When I close my eyes and
concentrate, I can still feel her scarlet lips pressed against mine. Warm and soft, contrasted with the
delicate cold hands caressing my face.
I sigh and give up. The stars aren't going to show themselves today. Not to me, at least. The sky has beaten me, and
I lower my head in defeat. However, as I move my gaze downwards though, I laugh. While I was busy looking for the
stars, there had been a group of
fireflies dancing
right underneath my nose.
Were they dancing for me? I don't know. How long had they been dancing, while I was busy
gazing at the sky?
A small group of them float towards my face, while continuing their
exquisite dance. Perhaps it's the
warmth of my body. Or maybe they just see themselves,
reflected in my eyes, and are
lured in by the illusion. At least I know now that they're dancing, just for me.
I hold out my hand. One of them slowly wafts towards it, as if it were
reading my intentions. I bring it close to me. It's so close I can see the individual features on it now. The
joints of the
legs, the
armor-like exoskeleton, the
crystalline wings, and dozens of other features an
arthropologist could go on for hours describing. The glow was
hypnotizing, constantly getting brighter and fading in a
steady rhythym.
I watch the
firefly for what seemed like an
eternity. The
rhythym changed before my eyes, slowing down, and then coming to a complete stop.
It was dead.
It had flown in my hand to die...was that a backhanded compliment? No, definitely not. It couldn't have been. It had given me its final show. It was an
honor.
Why the firefly chose my palm to be its
final resting place, I don't know...but I felt that I owed it something. Perhaps it was just a bit of lunacy from
standing out in the night for too long, but I decided that I owed the firefly a
burial. It seemed fitting, after all.
Using my finger, I dig a small hole in the earth. I gently ease the
dead firefly in and pat the dirt back into place.
The remaining fireflies zealously continued their dance, either unaware or uncaring about their
fallen compatriot. Oddly, I hoped it was the first reason and not the second. The world was
depressing enough without
cold-hearted fireflies...
I wound up watching the fireflies until the sun announced itself with
scarlet light.
That damned thing had absolutely no subtlety at all, I swear. But I was content. Even if the
Heavens didn't give me the stars I was looking for, the
Earth had...and that was good enough for me.