Fireflies in the Rain
Nicolas Chavez
Outside the children scream and the trees are starting to shrivel up. The summer is coming to a end. The sky is light blue even at 7 pm. The sun has just started to set. It was Pennsylvania, a place where my childhood begun, and a place I spent the rest of my childhood thinking about. Nearby the Letort river trickled with autumn leaves going under the little wooden bridge.
Outside the crab apple trees have fallen from the trees and rotted with the damp leaves. The grass grows high and unkept in many lawns. My brother has found employment through picking up the rotting crab apples and putting them in a trashcan. The fireflies take flight and bounce through the air in pale luminescent patterns. I lay on the couch inside a small two-story clapboard house where my family lived. The white painted clapboard houses were as old as the Civil War and were torn down after we moved away. The Indian summer was coming to a end, Halloween decorations were being put up all over Carlisle Barracks.
Outside the wind blew and thunderheads moved in, I walk out to go look for eggs left over from the community Easter hunt six months earlier. I had been lucky and found six so far, and I wasn’t in the mood to go play with the other children. The backyards were not separated by fences, rather the backdoor opened up to a bricked patio and then a inner park space with playgrounds and more crab apple trees. It wasn’t big, but it was big enough for twenty or thirty kids to have dodge ball fights, I always hid behind a wheelbarrow for cover with two other smaller kids. The park area was sloped, so in a dodge ball fight those who had the hill won the day. I walked past a dodge ball fight and a ball comes my way, I duck and walk towards a bush that I hadn’t checked yet. I had a method that was sophisticated, I mapped out all the trees and bushes in the park area and systematically shook them out. The sun was heading towards a red color and the dark blue sky was streaked with pastels of pink and purple. I shook a medium sized bush and fireflies rose up. They joined the others and the darkening day was filled with specks of yellow light illuminating the colored sky like little gun flashes in the dark. In the distance thunderstorms started to light up the night with thunder like artillery, the dodge ball game is coming to an end, warfare is too hard to continue in the dark. Porch lights turn on and I continue to dig through the bush, inside I see a glint purple and yellow, excited I start to reach forward and pull further into the depths of the bush. I pulled out a patterned egg and open it slowly, will it be a Snicker, Reese, Skittles? I open it in the porch light and see a glint of green, like a green wrapper. I hear a calling of my name, and I put the egg in my pocket for later opening. The sky is dark know and the fireflies continue to flicker on and off, a light rain begins to drizzle.
Outside, for a few moments I stand there breathing in the wonder of fresh rain and feel the last day of that summer come to an end for autumn came early that year, the fireflies start to fly towards their homes, flying in the rain. With that thought I remember that I have a home to go to as well and trudge towards it.
Outside the crab apple trees have fallen from the trees and rotted with the damp leaves. The grass grows high and unkept in many lawns. My brother has found employment through picking up the rotting crab apples and putting them in a trashcan. The fireflies take flight and bounce through the air in pale luminescent patterns. I lay on the couch inside a small two-story clapboard house where my family lived. The white painted clapboard houses were as old as the Civil War and were torn down after we moved away. The Indian summer was coming to a end, Halloween decorations were being put up all over Carlisle Barracks.
Outside the wind blew and thunderheads moved in, I walk out to go look for eggs left over from the community Easter hunt six months earlier. I had been lucky and found six so far, and I wasn’t in the mood to go play with the other children. The backyards were not separated by fences, rather the backdoor opened up to a bricked patio and then a inner park space with playgrounds and more crab apple trees. It wasn’t big, but it was big enough for twenty or thirty kids to have dodge ball fights, I always hid behind a wheelbarrow for cover with two other smaller kids. The park area was sloped, so in a dodge ball fight those who had the hill won the day. I walked past a dodge ball fight and a ball comes my way, I duck and walk towards a bush that I hadn’t checked yet. I had a method that was sophisticated, I mapped out all the trees and bushes in the park area and systematically shook them out. The sun was heading towards a red color and the dark blue sky was streaked with pastels of pink and purple. I shook a medium sized bush and fireflies rose up. They joined the others and the darkening day was filled with specks of yellow light illuminating the colored sky like little gun flashes in the dark. In the distance thunderstorms started to light up the night with thunder like artillery, the dodge ball game is coming to an end, warfare is too hard to continue in the dark. Porch lights turn on and I continue to dig through the bush, inside I see a glint purple and yellow, excited I start to reach forward and pull further into the depths of the bush. I pulled out a patterned egg and open it slowly, will it be a Snicker, Reese, Skittles? I open it in the porch light and see a glint of green, like a green wrapper. I hear a calling of my name, and I put the egg in my pocket for later opening. The sky is dark know and the fireflies continue to flicker on and off, a light rain begins to drizzle.
Outside, for a few moments I stand there breathing in the wonder of fresh rain and feel the last day of that summer come to an end for autumn came early that year, the fireflies start to fly towards their homes, flying in the rain. With that thought I remember that I have a home to go to as well and trudge towards it.
Nicolas Chavez is a Sophomore in High school at N.M.M.I.