Dancing in the Moonlight

Cramp Winner, 5/26/13

Under the full moon, the creatures danced. They were everywhere, zooming high into the air, hovering low to the ground, darting to the right or left when I tried to catch one. At times their greenish white light blinked furiously and in unison, then for no reason known to me, the lights would remain on for several seconds. They scared me a little, there were so many of them, and they moved constantly. Did they blink when I did, or was that my imagination? Their brilliance soared out of my reach as they felt my presence.

The tall grass was warm and wet between my bare toes. Grandmom and Poppop rested in their lawn chairs and watched as I ran, arms outstretched, a lid with ice-picked holes in one hand, an empty jelly jar in the other, a tiny bit of grass in the bottom of it. My cousins’ boyish shadows darted past me, scooping up the fireflies, competing for the prize of homemade strawberry ice cream freezing in the hand-cranked bucket on the front porch. Winner got three scoops, second place two, third place at least got one. I feared mine would be the smallest. My cousins were too young to have developed any consideration for a skinny girl, especially when ice cream was involved.

I wasn’t even too sure I wanted to catch any of the fragile-looking little bugs. My half-hearted attempts made them dash away or fly higher up into the moonlit sky. Then through magic I captured one. He went down into the grasses in the bottom of my jar, and I screwed on the lid. He blinked slower, looking around, not knowing where he was. I watched as he crawled up a blade of grass, blink, blink. Everything around me disappeared as the lightning bug became my world. I could feel his heart beating as he looked for escape back into the twilight. I could not do it. I unscrewed the lid and watched as the tiny insect crawled almost to the top of the jar then suddenly flew out into freedom. I tried to watch him, but there were too many.

I turned to Poppop and Grandmom, but I had no words. Poppop smiled, and I ran to his open arms, dropping my empty jelly jar to the earth, no more use to me.

I scrunched onto part of Poppop’s chair and watched my cousins scoop up the blinking insects until their jars glowed. Finally, tired of the game, the boys plopped down on the grass in front of us and proudly displayed their booty, awaiting their prize.

My grandparents scrutinized their jars for several minutes and determined Larry to be the winner of the three scoops. Both Calvin and Larry rushed to the front porch as Grandmom followed with the ice cream scoop.

Poppop looked at the two jars and handed one to me. He got up and I followed him out into the middle of the front yard.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

I nodded. We unscrewed the lids and held the jars as high up into the sky as we could reach. Poppop and I made magic that night.