fireflies

I closed my eyes and steeped myself in that long-ago darkness. I heard the wind with unusual clarity. Far from strong, the wind swept past me, leaving strangely brilliant trails in the darkness. I opened my eyes to find the darkness of the summer night a few degrees deeper than it had been.
I twisted open the lid of the jar and took the firefly out, setting it on the two-inch lid of the water tank. It seemed not to grasp its new surroundings. It hobbled around the head of a steel bolt, catching its' legs on curling scales of paint. it moved to the right until it found its way blocked, then circled back to the left. Finally, with some effort, it mounted the head of the bolt and crouched there for a while, unmoving, as if it had taken its last breath.
Still leaning against the handrail, I studied the firefly. Neither I nor it made a move for a very long time. The wind continued sweeping past the two of us while the numberles leaves of the zelkova tree rustled in the darkness.
I waited forever.
only much later did the firefly take to the air. As if some thought had suddenly come to it, the firefly spread its wings, and in a moment it had flown past the handrail to float in the pale darkness. It traced a swift arc by the side of the water tank as if trying to bring back a lost interval in time. And then, after hovering there for a few seconds as if to watch its curved line of light blend into the wind, it finally flew off to the east.
Long after the firefly had disappeared, the trail of its light remained inside me, its pale, faint glow hovering on and on in the thick darkness behind my eyelids like a lost soul.
More than once I tried stretching my hand out in that darkness. My fingers touched nothing. The faint glow remained, just beyond their grasp.
(taken from)

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beautiful prose, written by another, perks the tired me up. or rather, I have not much of a basis to claim to be tired since all I have been doing was to load my kids with work and take off to a semi-haunted school, refurbished with a new airconditioning system and listen to balding old men with a warped sense of humour who makes tired civil servants laugh, watch heads nod off in front of me, beside me, around me, and later playing the roles of blind people, wheelchair bound people, the illiterate. simulacra. reminding me of white noise, which I hated.

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back to school tomorrow with compositions sitting on my table, remediation worksheets, the need to plan, and the prospects of a long contact time, and 4 periods with me dashing off to 4 different class. in full swing. midweek.

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