Redirected Fireflies

It was the first date I ever went on. We drove in his white pickup truck to the top of the hill and parked and let the tailgate down. We piled in the back with pillows and blankets, and he sipped his Schlitz while I munched on Junior Mints and we waited until the sun set low. When the last of the day had slipped away, we lay back on our pillows and he reached for my hand, and we lost ourselves in the universe.

He pointed out Orion… He scooped me up in the Little Dipper and we were guided by the North Star. We sailed the Milky Way on cosmic waves, all the while my little hand held tightly in his grasp. I closed my eyes and I could feel my heart smiling. We spoke of the past, and of the present and future. He laughed, and then I laughed, and then we stopped laughing as part of the universe faded from sight.

These motionless fireflies that lit the night sky… they lived, and they died, in seasons. What brought them to Earth? Did they travel home for a reason? What if they didn’t fall down at all? What if they just fell away, to another place? Redirected fireflies… Perhaps it was just their time to shine from another position in that vast openness.

We lay there, our eyes fixed on the shower of fireflies, waiting for the next and then the next and then the next to fall away. We followed them until they burned out of sight, hoping to catch a glimpse of one’s new position… looking for hope that there was no death in these stars, only eternal light. We frantically searched for signs of a new glow, one that belonged to a firefly that redirected nearer thee. Mostly, we just held hands and took in the world around us.

In the middle of this night, with legs dangling over the edge of the Little Dipper, surrounded in the Milky Way… I think of my father and the night we sailed the cosmic waves. I see the North Star and I wave at him, knowing that he’s redirected there, to guide me home.