| The Lonely Firefly By Gale Chester Whittington ==Copyright 2004-2009== |
...........................................In the present, she wipes away a tear and shakes her head..
“Damn you, Bonnie Ray! Why’d you have to wanta live in that damned New York
City anyhow? Damned fool! Shoulda known I.couldn’t just up and leave my poor
bed-ridden mom like that, especially after . . . after they came and ruined
everything.” Sarah places a hand on her forehead and shudders. “Anyhow, the
whole world knows big cities are for normal people.”
She stands and, with a nod of the head, tosses her long hair behind her. “No
matter, we can’t cry over spilt milk, now can we?” Sarah picks up her button-eyed
Chihuahua and nuzzles nose to nose with him. “Thank God for you, Buddy. You
appreciate the clean air and room to run, don’cha, baby? And you could care less
how old and ugly I am.”
The dog whines. “Poor sweet Buddy! Did I squeeze ya too hard?” She lets him
down, sighs, and falls back into the rocker. “Gotta learn to relax.” She gazes back
toward the yard, just as the wind picks up. The firefly in the rose speeds up his
flashing. “Gettin’ desperate now, huh? I’m tellin’ ya, it ain’t gonna work. Can’t just
stay put and expect the world to beat a path to your door. Life don’t work that way.
Ya gotta get out and show the ladies what you’re made of.”
Next night, Sarah carries a basket of eggs into the house and returns to the front
porch. “Oh, my achin’ bones!” She sits and takes a sip of Dr Pepper. When the sun
disappears over the ridge, she watches until a few fireflies begin flashing in the
yard. She turns toward the tree rose. “Well, well. No sign of my friend tonight,
Buddy. Must’ve learned his lesson.”
As more fireflies join the show, she thinks about Bonnie Ray calling them
“lightnin’” bugs. “They’re not fireflies,” she would say. “My dad, and my granddad
before him, they called them lightnin’ bugs, and therefore, that’s what they are—
lightnin’ bugs.”
“Bonnie Ray! You were so silly, so set in your ways.” Sarah watches as the
streetlight flickers and the yard lights up. “Damned 'lectric—Well, I’ll be. The little
fool’s still there, sittin’ in the same spot. Just a little slow, I guess.”
A week later, just as she settles in on the porch after a long day weeding the
garden, a howling startles her. Cackling chickens complete the alarm. Sarah jumps
off her chair, runs into the house for a shotgun, and scrambles to the poultry yard.
Spotting a bobcat carrying a limp hen in its mouth, she stops and lifts the shotgun,
pulling the trigger just as the cat scales the fence. The gun kicks Sarah’s shoulder
and knocks her to the ground. She jumps to her feet and runs to the fence. The
dead hen lies on the brown earth. No bobcat in sight. She lifts the bloody white
leghorn’s limp body and holds it to her chest, ignoring the pain now stabbing her
shoulder.
Tears flood down her face. “Bonnie Ray told me to lock the chickens up at night.
Why, oh why, didn’t I listen?” She quivers and sucks the rest of the tears down her
throat. Sarah holds her head up and carries the hen to the garage, where she
retrieves a rusty Havahart trap from the rafters. After placing the chicken’s body
inside, she sets the contraption where the bobcat jumped the fence.
“‘They always come back for more, Sarah.’ That’s what Bonnie Ray told me. My
Lord, how long’s it been since she said that? Thirty years? My Lord! ’Course she
was talkin’ ’bout those hideous aliens.” Her mind becomes a whirlwind of thought
as painful memories jump from the deep recesses of her brain.
Slappping at a mosquito with the gloves she always wears, she recalls Bonnie Ray’
s incessant reckoning. “There’s logic about why spaceships always land in the
country.
It’s easier for the creatures, without the crowds. But you fooled them, Sarah! They
hadn’t banked on a farm girl being strong enough to expel them from her body, like
you did. You’ve got a powerful will, Sarah.”
She feels the corners of her mouth beginning to turn upward, but then remembers
what happened next. She shudders, turns around, and heads back to the house.
“That’s
’nough thinkin’ ’bout the past . . . got the here and now to deal with . . . ought not to
have tried to kill that fool cat . . . prob’ly on the ‘Endangered Species’ list . . .
prowlin’ ’round these parts, that cat is in danger. Don’t belong here anyhow. Once I
catch that fool critter, I’ll move ’im to . . . to . . . I dunno . . . the next county, I guess.
Returning to the porch, she sits on the rocker, chugs a whole can of Dr Pepper,
and talks to her begonias. “Whew! It’s a hard life, living in the country, all alone,
without . . . without . . . my dear Bonnie Ray. Seems like just yesterday, she . . . she .
. . took that job in New York City . . . Can’t blame ’er, though when I told ’er she
should go . . . her career bein’ on the line and all . . .” She takes a deep breath. “. . .
Besides, wasn’t fair to ask ’er to stay, considerin’ what those aliens did to me.”
All at once, Sarah thinks about her dog. “Buddy!” She stands and opens the front
door. The Chihuahua scampers out and whimpers until she picks him up. “My dear
sweet little Buddy! Did the shotgun scare you? Everything’s okay now. Weren’t the
aliens, just a fool bobcat and it ran off, just like Bonn—I mean, that bobcat high-
tailed it outa here.” Sarah rubs her cheek against Buddy’s face. He responds with a
flick of his wet tongue.
Her tired eyes gaze at the yard. Watching the fireflies helps her relax, until she
spots her solitary friend on the Rio Samba tree rose still flashing too far from the
crowd to be noticed. “Look at that poor foolish firefly, Buddy. He still ain’t learnt if
he wants love, he’s gotta reach out.”
Next night, she dons a sweater after the wind changes directions and blows in
from the north. “Brrrrr! Nasty weather. Wish I was in Rio . . . or . . . or in Heaven with
dear Mom, bless her sweet soul. I shouldn’t oughta think ’bout dyin’ though . . .
gotta be strong.”
Fewer fireflies than usual take part in the show tonight, but she finds the lonely
one, still hanging out in the tree rose, flashing at a pace more rapid than ever. “That
does it! Poor thing’s gonna git snowed on afore he attracts a girlfriend. I’ll just go
over there and nudge ’im. Maybe he’ll git the idea.”
She and Buddy go into the house to retrieve a flashlight. They move to the tree
rose and search for the firefly.
“I’ll be damned! He’s gone!” The wind picks up and she detects a shimmer from the
bottom branches. She points the flashlight at the source.
“Oh, my God!” Her fingers encircle the metallic nametag, worn smooth by time and
weather. “’Twere just the reflection from the fool yard light!” She holds the
flashlight closer and through the faint etching of “Rio Samba,” she peers deep into
the recesses of the shiny metal.
There, staring back at her, she sees her reflection, a face covered with huge green
and purple boils, the legacy left by the aliens. She recoils, remembering how lucky
she was to have purged the invaders from her mind, but how it had been too late
for her body. How traces of their DNA had already merged with hers, and although
the metamorphosis had stopped, her skin was no longer human.
Moisture wells up in her eyes. She drops the flashlight and sinks to the ground.
The little dog snuggles up to her heaving body, turns the whimpering into a duet,
and licks the massive flow of tears from the Sarah May Barlow face he loves
without condition.
She tries to ignore the Chihuahua, but soon finds herself giggling. “Okay, Buddy,
that’s enough!” She picks herself up, smiling at the happy-go-lucky canine. “Come
on, time to lock up the chickens. Then I’ll fix us both a nice omelet! How does that
sound?”
Wagging his tail, the little dog barks out what she takes as a "Yes!"
Sarah laughs and reaches down to pat him on the rear. “Okay then, let’s go. We got
work to do, my little buddy!”
“Damn you, Bonnie Ray! Why’d you have to wanta live in that damned New York
City anyhow? Damned fool! Shoulda known I.couldn’t just up and leave my poor
bed-ridden mom like that, especially after . . . after they came and ruined
everything.” Sarah places a hand on her forehead and shudders. “Anyhow, the
whole world knows big cities are for normal people.”
She stands and, with a nod of the head, tosses her long hair behind her. “No
matter, we can’t cry over spilt milk, now can we?” Sarah picks up her button-eyed
Chihuahua and nuzzles nose to nose with him. “Thank God for you, Buddy. You
appreciate the clean air and room to run, don’cha, baby? And you could care less
how old and ugly I am.”
The dog whines. “Poor sweet Buddy! Did I squeeze ya too hard?” She lets him
down, sighs, and falls back into the rocker. “Gotta learn to relax.” She gazes back
toward the yard, just as the wind picks up. The firefly in the rose speeds up his
flashing. “Gettin’ desperate now, huh? I’m tellin’ ya, it ain’t gonna work. Can’t just
stay put and expect the world to beat a path to your door. Life don’t work that way.
Ya gotta get out and show the ladies what you’re made of.”
Next night, Sarah carries a basket of eggs into the house and returns to the front
porch. “Oh, my achin’ bones!” She sits and takes a sip of Dr Pepper. When the sun
disappears over the ridge, she watches until a few fireflies begin flashing in the
yard. She turns toward the tree rose. “Well, well. No sign of my friend tonight,
Buddy. Must’ve learned his lesson.”
As more fireflies join the show, she thinks about Bonnie Ray calling them
“lightnin’” bugs. “They’re not fireflies,” she would say. “My dad, and my granddad
before him, they called them lightnin’ bugs, and therefore, that’s what they are—
lightnin’ bugs.”
“Bonnie Ray! You were so silly, so set in your ways.” Sarah watches as the
streetlight flickers and the yard lights up. “Damned 'lectric—Well, I’ll be. The little
fool’s still there, sittin’ in the same spot. Just a little slow, I guess.”
A week later, just as she settles in on the porch after a long day weeding the
garden, a howling startles her. Cackling chickens complete the alarm. Sarah jumps
off her chair, runs into the house for a shotgun, and scrambles to the poultry yard.
Spotting a bobcat carrying a limp hen in its mouth, she stops and lifts the shotgun,
pulling the trigger just as the cat scales the fence. The gun kicks Sarah’s shoulder
and knocks her to the ground. She jumps to her feet and runs to the fence. The
dead hen lies on the brown earth. No bobcat in sight. She lifts the bloody white
leghorn’s limp body and holds it to her chest, ignoring the pain now stabbing her
shoulder.
Tears flood down her face. “Bonnie Ray told me to lock the chickens up at night.
Why, oh why, didn’t I listen?” She quivers and sucks the rest of the tears down her
throat. Sarah holds her head up and carries the hen to the garage, where she
retrieves a rusty Havahart trap from the rafters. After placing the chicken’s body
inside, she sets the contraption where the bobcat jumped the fence.
“‘They always come back for more, Sarah.’ That’s what Bonnie Ray told me. My
Lord, how long’s it been since she said that? Thirty years? My Lord! ’Course she
was talkin’ ’bout those hideous aliens.” Her mind becomes a whirlwind of thought
as painful memories jump from the deep recesses of her brain.
Slappping at a mosquito with the gloves she always wears, she recalls Bonnie Ray’
s incessant reckoning. “There’s logic about why spaceships always land in the
country.
It’s easier for the creatures, without the crowds. But you fooled them, Sarah! They
hadn’t banked on a farm girl being strong enough to expel them from her body, like
you did. You’ve got a powerful will, Sarah.”
She feels the corners of her mouth beginning to turn upward, but then remembers
what happened next. She shudders, turns around, and heads back to the house.
“That’s
’nough thinkin’ ’bout the past . . . got the here and now to deal with . . . ought not to
have tried to kill that fool cat . . . prob’ly on the ‘Endangered Species’ list . . .
prowlin’ ’round these parts, that cat is in danger. Don’t belong here anyhow. Once I
catch that fool critter, I’ll move ’im to . . . to . . . I dunno . . . the next county, I guess.
Returning to the porch, she sits on the rocker, chugs a whole can of Dr Pepper,
and talks to her begonias. “Whew! It’s a hard life, living in the country, all alone,
without . . . without . . . my dear Bonnie Ray. Seems like just yesterday, she . . . she .
. . took that job in New York City . . . Can’t blame ’er, though when I told ’er she
should go . . . her career bein’ on the line and all . . .” She takes a deep breath. “. . .
Besides, wasn’t fair to ask ’er to stay, considerin’ what those aliens did to me.”
All at once, Sarah thinks about her dog. “Buddy!” She stands and opens the front
door. The Chihuahua scampers out and whimpers until she picks him up. “My dear
sweet little Buddy! Did the shotgun scare you? Everything’s okay now. Weren’t the
aliens, just a fool bobcat and it ran off, just like Bonn—I mean, that bobcat high-
tailed it outa here.” Sarah rubs her cheek against Buddy’s face. He responds with a
flick of his wet tongue.
Her tired eyes gaze at the yard. Watching the fireflies helps her relax, until she
spots her solitary friend on the Rio Samba tree rose still flashing too far from the
crowd to be noticed. “Look at that poor foolish firefly, Buddy. He still ain’t learnt if
he wants love, he’s gotta reach out.”
Next night, she dons a sweater after the wind changes directions and blows in
from the north. “Brrrrr! Nasty weather. Wish I was in Rio . . . or . . . or in Heaven with
dear Mom, bless her sweet soul. I shouldn’t oughta think ’bout dyin’ though . . .
gotta be strong.”
Fewer fireflies than usual take part in the show tonight, but she finds the lonely
one, still hanging out in the tree rose, flashing at a pace more rapid than ever. “That
does it! Poor thing’s gonna git snowed on afore he attracts a girlfriend. I’ll just go
over there and nudge ’im. Maybe he’ll git the idea.”
She and Buddy go into the house to retrieve a flashlight. They move to the tree
rose and search for the firefly.
“I’ll be damned! He’s gone!” The wind picks up and she detects a shimmer from the
bottom branches. She points the flashlight at the source.
“Oh, my God!” Her fingers encircle the metallic nametag, worn smooth by time and
weather. “’Twere just the reflection from the fool yard light!” She holds the
flashlight closer and through the faint etching of “Rio Samba,” she peers deep into
the recesses of the shiny metal.
There, staring back at her, she sees her reflection, a face covered with huge green
and purple boils, the legacy left by the aliens. She recoils, remembering how lucky
she was to have purged the invaders from her mind, but how it had been too late
for her body. How traces of their DNA had already merged with hers, and although
the metamorphosis had stopped, her skin was no longer human.
Moisture wells up in her eyes. She drops the flashlight and sinks to the ground.
The little dog snuggles up to her heaving body, turns the whimpering into a duet,
and licks the massive flow of tears from the Sarah May Barlow face he loves
without condition.
She tries to ignore the Chihuahua, but soon finds herself giggling. “Okay, Buddy,
that’s enough!” She picks herself up, smiling at the happy-go-lucky canine. “Come
on, time to lock up the chickens. Then I’ll fix us both a nice omelet! How does that
sound?”
Wagging his tail, the little dog barks out what she takes as a "Yes!"
Sarah laughs and reaches down to pat him on the rear. “Okay then, let’s go. We got
work to do, my little buddy!”
Gale Chester Whittington, Gay Author
Free Short Story
Don't forget to remember: Bargains fade, lose their shimmer.
Real heart thirst does not sever . . . but lives forever.
Real heart thirst does not sever . . . but lives forever.
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Sarah May Barlow hoses off the last corner of her front
porch just as the sun sets on neighbor Barlow's rolling
horse pasture. She plops herself onto the stained canvas
cushion of her 110 year-old iron-coil rocking chair. After a
minute of catching her breath, she picks up a can of Dr.
Pepper, one of the few luxuries she allows herself despite
the pitiful size of her Social Security check. The keeps her
regular, so she tells herself it’s almost a necessity, like
aspirin or Band-Aids.
She chugs a big swill of the sweet brown liquid and lets go
with a loud burp. “Excuuuuuse me!” She nods at a ruby-
throated hummingbird, which is busy drinking his own
preferred brand of nectar from one of many orange flowers
hanging from a massive black-eyed Susan vine framing the
porch entrance.
The giant flood light on the telephone pole in her yard
flickers and then comes on full force. Sarah wrinkles her
nose. “Ten dollars a month! Damned 'lectric company! If I
lived in the city, my streetlight’d be free.”
She turns to look at the flowers in the lighted yard. Her
problems grow less weighty as lightning bugs begin
strutting their stuff in the show they put on every night, just
for her. “You naughty little boogers!” Her voice cracks as
she laughs. “I know what you’re up to! Sex! Sex! Sex! That’s
what the whole world’s after these days. You don’t fool me!”
Sarah picks up her drink, but stops when she notices a
firefly flashing from her prize tree rose. “What’re ya doin’?
You’re supposed to be flyin’ around with your blinkers goin’
. . . not sittin’ down on the job.” Her mouth drops open. “Oh,
wow, maybe he’s crippled or somethin’ . . . I know; I’ll bet he
just likes that particular rose, ’cause it smells so heavenly.”
Her mind returns to the day her sweetheart brought the tree
rose home and how she opened the front door to see the
five-foot tall plant and nothing else. She remembers how
light-headed she felt when her eyes fell upon the huge
golden orange-tipped blossoms. They were so lovely!
And how, just as she stepped onto the porch, she heard,
“Rio Samba!” from someone hiding on the side.
“Wh-what?” she remembers asking.
“Rio Samba!” Her girlfriend had jumped to the rose tree and
was pointing at the metal tag hanging from a bottom
branch. “The name of the rose! And Rio is where we’re
going for . . . for our honeymoon! That is, if . . . if, my
beautiful Sarah . . . if . . .” How big her smile was! " . . . if
you'll marry me!"
| SOOTH YOUR SOUL! Visit my other website for exquisite photos and useful tips on flowers, aquariums, guppies, and ponds. FreeFishCareTips.com |
| "You can only fit so many martyrs in a before it rips and falls apart."--Gale Chester Whittington Blog Archives |
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