Fireflies

I saw it there, out in the distance from miles away. This bright, orange yellow light. Now that I’ve reached the hill past the woods, there’s no light. Only a note, a half crumpled note with wet spots, stuck into a thorn of a sprouting rose.

“Here, in my grasp, made of copper, filled with wax, is my lantern. To me, a symbol of hope and yearning, one also of honest reprieve. I stand here, at the cusp of surrounding woods, atop a rose budding hill, with moonlight shining above me. Tall grass sways gently and stars are tucked away by clouds. There is only darkness in these woods. I know that, yet even still, I will try. I will call out: O Where Are You? Where are you? You’re the prayer on the tip of my tongue, the imaginary friend of my childhood, the ruminations buzzing in the corner of my mind on a distracting day. I see you. I think of you. I wonder. I worry. I see it too, in this frantic, nail biting frenzy. I see it there as obvious as the moon and twisted branches and overgrown roots.

Rectangular, stainless steel drilled into marble flooring. A blueish, rotting corpse, your corpse, lying there on top. Sometimes you’re a man, other times a woman. Occasionally a child and hardly an elder. You possess every variation of ethnicity and every cultural charm of each bustling country. But you’re dead, on that autopsy table, and there are scientists towering above you, examining you even still. They’re fascinated, morbidly so, as they pull you apart piece by piece, and unzip your flesh to study the secrets within. They cry: ‘We’ve done it! We’ve found it! It’s LOH-1! It’s P2! And all it took were a couple of rats and corpses.’ They don’t mind the fluids draining from your ears or your nose, never mind your polycorian eyes. You’re just another victim of a stroke. A number in a game of cruel statistics. A ‘burden’ unto the easily annoyed and inconvenienced. Blood bubbles up from your lungs and past your misshaped teeth. It hardly matters that what once was you is pooling onto the marble because your kidneys are so petite and peculiar to the morbidly curious. This vision, this thought so horrifying, it frightens me into action.

I must light wax and raise this lantern high above, as far as I can reach. O Where Are You, Fireflies? So small and yet bright. Your existence lives in tongues, in stories passed on from family to friends, to the frightened and perturbed. You take this darkness and light it where ever you go, as is in your nature to do. You’re the community I wish I knew. A dream, a longing I know I’ll never see. It’s only in my mind’s eye that I see this group of fireflies, these burning stars years across space and time. I close my eyes and raise my lantern higher, in the hopes of, one day, discovering my truest desire. A face that looks like mine.

Perhaps I will. Likely I won’t. Still, for as long I stand atop this hill, I’ll keep this lantern raised and peer into these woods. I’ll wait, I’ll pray, patiently, for that day, for the hereafter and the community we’ll create. Though my heart beats against my chest and my palms have begun to stink of sweat, there’s a fire inside that cannot soothe. O Where Are You? Where are the people who look like me? Where are the fireflies? Will my lantern draw them close or scare them off? Am I too boastful? Non approachable? Unsociable? What would I do if I truly met you? Would I stare, as I’ve done in the mirror many years ago? I can’t hold my lantern forever, but I will try. I’ll burn this candle til it flickers and dries. To think of it, to dream of it, is simply not enough. Oh how I wish to socialize in kinship rather than be treated like a scientific experiment. I’ll stand even taller now, on the tips of my toes, lantern even higher above.

Are you still alive, O Fireflies, or has the darkness of this world snuffed you out for good? Perhaps I’ve been mistaken. Perhaps we aren’t fireflies, but rather butterflies. The kind that change direction of hurricanes.”

Oh...I was too late. I look down below at muddied footsteps and hold the note closer still. I know this feeling, for I am like the Lantern bearer, one cursed or blessed with polycorian eyes, one they would consider to be a firefly. You are not alone in these woods, O Lantern bearer. I hope you come back tomorrow night and, then at last, we’ll be able to gaze at each other’s lights. We can speak of art, of hobbies, and stray cats. We can walk in daffodil fields and finally feel what it means to be real. Rather than be gawked at, we can learn what it means to be human again. Until then, let the ones who don’t comprehend be apprehensive, for they will never understand what it means to possess polycorian pupils. Let them watch us from a distance while we fly further into our own space, away from their judgements and bigotry. That is my hope, at least. I don’t know what features you possess or what languages you speak, but I’ll know you to a degree for the fact you’ll still look a little like me too.

To be like this, to live detached from others, o what perspective it brings. O what it takes and gives in exchange for reputation and community. What distractions we bring to ourselves to fill in the hole that the rarity brings forth. Perhaps I should design my own lantern and stand atop the roof of my house. Could you see me then? Even if the sun, like a phoenix in the night, bursts a flare at solar maximum and shines upon us another multicolored display? If something like that can happen, can’t us two meet at last, O Lantern bearer?