Speaker 1: Firefly gardened. I moved to the little blue House on
Speaker 1: Willow Lane in late May. The back yard was large
Speaker 1: and overgrown, full of tall grass and wild flowers that
Speaker 1: had gone to seed. I liked it that way. It
Speaker 1: felt untamed and honest, like it had its own ideas
Speaker 1: about what beauty should look like. The first few evenings,
Speaker 1: I sat on the back porch with a cup of
Speaker 1: camomeal tea and watched the sun sink behind the fence.
Speaker 1: The sky turned orange, then pink, then a deep and
Speaker 1: dusky purple, and then, just as the last light began
Speaker 1: to fade, the fireflies came. At first, there were only
Speaker 1: a few tiny green gold sparks drifting lazily through the grass.
Speaker 1: I remembered fireflies from childhood, how my mother used to
Speaker 1: say they were fairies carrying lanterns through the garden. I
Speaker 1: watched them float and blink and disappear, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was lovely, but I did not think much more
Speaker 1: of it than that. The next evening there were more
Speaker 1: dozens of them, now rising from the grass in soft
Speaker 1: clouds of light. They blinked in a slow and gentle rhythm,
Speaker 1: and I noticed something strange. The blinking did not seem random.
Speaker 1: It felt patterned, like a language I could almost understand.
Speaker 1: I leaned forward in my chair, setting my tea on
Speaker 1: the railing. The fireflies drifted closer to the porch, and
Speaker 1: their light pulsed again, steady and deliberate. I counted the blinks,
Speaker 1: three flashes, a pause, four flashes, a pause, three more,
Speaker 1: over and over R. I thought the pattern looked like
Speaker 1: a letter R. Then another pattern E, than another S,
Speaker 1: then T R E S T. I blinked. I looked
Speaker 1: around the yard, as if some one might be watching,
Speaker 1: some neighbor playing a trick with a flashlight, but there
Speaker 1: was no one, just me and the fireflies and the
Speaker 1: warm summer air. I whispered the word to myself rest.
Speaker 1: The fireflies drifted higher, their lights still pulsing in that
Speaker 1: same slow rhythm, and I sat very still, feeling something
Speaker 1: I could not quite name. It was not fear. It
Speaker 1: was not wonder, though wonder was part of it. It
Speaker 1: was more like being greeted, like being spoken to by
Speaker 1: something ancient and kind. I went inside that night and
Speaker 1: lay in bed with the window open. The crickets sang
Speaker 1: their usual chorus, and somewhere a dog barked softly. But
Speaker 1: through it all I could see the faint green glow
Speaker 1: of the fireflies drifting past the window, and I felt
Speaker 1: a calm settle over me that I had not felt
Speaker 1: in a very long time. Every evening after that, I
Speaker 1: went to the back porch at dusk. I brought my
Speaker 1: tea or sometimes a glass of cool water, and I
Speaker 1: sat and waited. The fireflies always came. They rose from
Speaker 1: the grass like tiny wishes, and they gathered near the porch,
Speaker 1: and they spelled words with their light. The second night
Speaker 1: they spelled p E ace E. The third night h
Speaker 1: O M E. I did not know how to explain it.
Speaker 1: I did not try. Some things I decided are better
Speaker 1: left unexplained. They are better received than understood. I began
Speaker 1: to look forward to the evenings. I would finish my work,
Speaker 1: tidy the kitchen, make my tea, and then step out
Speaker 1: onto the porch as the sky turned from blue to
Speaker 1: gold to purple. The fireflies were always waiting. They seemed
Speaker 1: to know my schedule. They seemed to understand that I
Speaker 1: needed this, that their quiet messages were a kind of
Speaker 1: medicine for a tired heart. Some nights the words were simple,
Speaker 1: l O V E, j O y h O p E.
Speaker 1: Other nights, they were longer, more careful, as if the
Speaker 1: fireflies were composing something special just for me. On one
Speaker 1: warm Thursday in July, they spelled f R I E
Speaker 1: n D. I laughed out loud at that one, and
Speaker 1: the fireflies blinked faster for a moment, as if they
Speaker 1: were laughing too. I did not tell anyone about what
Speaker 1: the fireflies were doing, not my sister, not my neighbor,
Speaker 1: not the woman at the bakery where I bought my
Speaker 1: bread on Saturday mornings. I kept it as my own
Speaker 1: quiet secret, a private conversation between me and the evening air.
Speaker 1: I had the feeling that if I tried to explain it,
Speaker 1: the words would sound foolish, and the magic of it
Speaker 1: would thin and fade. So I held it close, the
Speaker 1: way you hold a dream upon waking, turning it gently
Speaker 1: in your mind before the daylight claims it. The weeks passed,
Speaker 1: summer deepened and mellowed, The nights grew longer, and the
Speaker 1: fireflies grew brighter, as if they too were preparing for something.
Speaker 1: I noticed they were gathering in larger numbers, now filling
Speaker 1: the entire back yard with their soft green glow. The
Speaker 1: garden looked like a sky that had fallen to earth,
Speaker 1: scattered its own small stars. I would sit in my
Speaker 1: chair and feel the warmth of the evening on my skin,
Speaker 1: and watch the fireflies drift and blink, and sometimes I
Speaker 1: would forget to drink my tea because I was so
Speaker 1: absorbed in the quiet spectacle before me. One night in
Speaker 1: early August, the air felt different. It was softer, somehow,
Speaker 1: thicker with warmth, and the crickets were singing a slower
Speaker 1: song than usual. I settled into my chair with my
Speaker 1: tea and waited. The fireflies came, as they always did,
Speaker 1: rising from the tall grass in a gentle cloud, But
Speaker 1: tonight there were more of them than I had ever seen.
Speaker 1: They filled the yard from fence to fence, a shimmering
Speaker 1: curtain of light. They drifted closer to the porch, closer
Speaker 1: than they had ever come before, and their glow was brighter, warmer,
Speaker 1: like a hundred tiny candles burning in the dusk. I
Speaker 1: held my breath. The fireflies began to blink, slowly, carefully,
Speaker 1: one letter at a time. S A pause, L A pause, E,
Speaker 1: A pause E, A pause E A pause P S
Speaker 1: L E E p The word hung in the air
Speaker 1: like a promise. The fireflies held their glow for a
Speaker 1: long moment, steady and warm, and then they began to
Speaker 1: drift downward, settling into the grass one by one, their
Speaker 1: light fading gently like a lullaby winding down. The back
Speaker 1: yard grew darker, but it was a soft darkness, a
Speaker 1: gentle darkness, the kind that wraps around you like a blanket.
Speaker 1: I yawned. It came from somewhere deeped inside me, a
Speaker 1: yawn so big and so slow that it made my
Speaker 1: eyes water. I set my empty tea cup on the
Speaker 1: railing and leaned back in my chair. The night air
Speaker 1: was warm on my face. The crickets had gone quiet.
Speaker 1: The fireflies were gone, settled into the grass, their work
Speaker 1: for the evening complete. I closed my eyes. I could
Speaker 1: still see the letters glowing behind my eyelids, soft green
Speaker 1: and gold against the darkness. S l e e he.
Speaker 1: I thought about what it meant, this word the fireflies
Speaker 1: had chosen for me. Not rest, not peace, not hope, sleep.
Speaker 1: They were telling me it was time time to let
Speaker 1: go of the day, time to stop thinking, time to
Speaker 1: simply be still and let the night hold me. I
Speaker 1: did not go inside. I stayed in my chair on
Speaker 1: the porch, wrapped in a light cotton shawl, and I
Speaker 1: let myself drift. The warmth of the evening cradled me.
Speaker 1: The silence was gentle and complete, and somewhere in the
Speaker 1: soft darkness of the back yard, beneath the tall grass
Speaker 1: and the wild flowers, the fireflies rested too, their tiny
Speaker 1: bodies curled among the roots and the earth, their light
Speaker 1: dimmed to almost nothing, dreaming whatever it is that fireflies
Speaker 1: dream about. I slept. I slept deeply and peacefully, and
Speaker 1: when I woke in the morning, the sun was warm
Speaker 1: on my face, and a bird was singing in the
Speaker 1: oak tree above the porch. The back yard was quiet
Speaker 1: and green, and the fireflies were gone, hidden somewhere in
Speaker 1: the shade, waiting for the next dusk to return. I
Speaker 1: picked up my teacup and carried it inside, and I
Speaker 1: smiled because I knew they would be back tonight and
Speaker 1: I would be waiting, and whatever word they chose to spell,
Speaker 1: I would be ready to receive it.