Firefly

It’s painfully cold here.  As I type, I feel the frigid breeze sneaking in through the air conditioning unit at my side and crawling over my toes to slink back out the poorly sealed chimney.

As I mentioned earlier, I found an old notebook full of short stories, random observations, and snippets of conversations.  I vividly remember the hot August night I wrote this.  Reading it again, the memory made me warm enough to almost regain feeling in my toes.  I’m sharing it in the hopes it will warm you up a little, too.  (If you’re already warm and toasty, suck it.  There’s no need to rub it in.)

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Tonight I saw a firefly – a brief streak of chartreuse in the dark.

Well, dark is a relative word in Manhattan.  I’d never seen a lightning bug in Manhattan before…eight years and nary a firefly.  The vision made me hungry for the scent of honeysuckle and wet grass.  I wanted to be engulfed by the smell of sweet shrub as I chewed its flavorful branches.

The giddiness that ensued inspired me to drag my hand across the top of the evergreen bushes battling the railings along Broadway, as Huck Finn dragged his stick down the white picket fences.  For a few brief moments, I was back home looking up at the stars and listening as the cicada chanted their sweet lullaby.

I saw a firefly tonight.  Half a block later, I stepped on the biggest cockroach I’d ever seen.