The Flash Light

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As the cicadas droned, I found myself in the park, walking down a misty, rainy path, surrounded by long rows of bushes and trees. Their perspective invited me to walk slowly and meditatively. As I proceeded, I noticed a yellow-green flash. It was a flash, a consistent flash, a hypnotizing flash—a tiny, beautiful yellow-green flash.

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Slowly, as I approached the glow, The firefly was contained in one space. I walked down a misty, rainy path as I watched its beautiful light reflect on bushes and puddles of water, reflecting on the trees with the contents of a flashlight. The lights reflecting upon the pathway and perspective mingled with the soft street lamps. They all created a misty glow and a mysterious flow to the night.

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As I approached closer, I noticed the edges of a spider’s web. My steps slowed. I focused on the flash. But my concern became a reality: a firefly had fallen into the spider’s grasp. As the cicadas sounded like base cellos, a summer night became cooler. The firefly’s yellow-green glow continued to shine brightly, reflecting into my desperate circumstances and reflecting in small puddles of rain.

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I quickly found a twig and separated the spider from the firefly. As it fell to the wet soil, the spider vanished into darkness. The firefly lay motionless, but it continued to flash. I wondered if it had died or was in a state of paralysis.

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I read that the spider's venom caused paralysis as the spider extracted body fluids, leaving the exoskeleton attached to its web and dangling in the sphere.

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Suddenly, I saw movement—slight movements. At that point, there was nothing more I could do but hope that the firefly had fully recovered. As I walked away, I celebrated if I had interrupted something sacred in nature: the web’s purpose, the spider’s existence, the firefly’s fate.

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I remember I once sketched a flock of seagulls eating a carcass on a glaring highway. When I finished, they flew into the dark side of my brain as I entreated.

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(Sometimes, humankind dies as a result of abstract ideas; usually, fireflies die as a result of nature’s pragmatism.)