Lightning bugs blanketed the air during the summer. Every night in the low light of dusk their lantern light flickered on, almost in unison with the streetlights on our cul-de-sac.
Our mother would stand fanning herself on the back porch, trails of smoke curling up from her Lucky Strike, as we zigzagged through the yard. She’d watch as we ran, mouths agape and mason jars in hand, waving our arms in the direction of each new flash.
“You’re falling behind,” my brother would tease, never breaking focus from his twinkling objectives. But I’d always come up just short, and we were forced to release our temporary captives before our mother ushered us inside for the night.
I’d often lie awake in bed, wondering where those bugs went during the day and whether or not they spent all night signaling each other, illuminating everything with their phosphorescent shades of yellow and green.
One night, I left our room, my brother asleep in his bed, tiptoed silently across the cool linoleum of the kitchen, and retrieved the jar I’d hidden behind our father’s toolbox in the garage.
Lying in bed, I watched as the bugs buzzed around, clinking against the glass and each other, my own living night light.
“What do you think you’re doing,” my brother said, shoving me awake the next morning. “You didn’t even put holes in the top.”
I rubbed my eyes with my fists as I sat up and looked down, the jar on its side underneath my arm. I examined it against the morning light sneaking between the shades. The bugs were motionless in heaps, all antennas and wings, and they rattled like chickpeas when I tried shaking them to life.
Listen to "Lightning In a Bottle"
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