The Nights of the Firefly

The monsoon has just took an hiatus after barging on my window silts for what seemed like hours, the night still resounded with the faint dripping of the raindrops, yet there was an unusual silence about the dark veil it wore. The cold night which was reeling under the rain was just released and like a convict freed from the prison, it took in a deep breath, a profound, prolonged breath. The tress swayed and banged their heard on my bedroom walls. The night was poignant and yet there was one visitor who was not gloomy, one who was high in spirit, dancing around with a limy lantern on her tail. Every monsoon she had came to visit me, day in and day after and this rainy night was no different, betwixt the occasional lashing of the coconut palms and the slow insidious murmur of the cricket. Slowly gliding into the darkness of my room, the strange ghostly lights, yellow, green and fluorescence of the chemical light, as though she in her gentle palanquin. She swayed and she glided, she smiled and she frowned and she sat on my bed with child-like innocence. A creature so pure, so beautiful, that her faint yellowish green glow has filled up more than just a room, it has filled my heart, the gentle sublime firefly!

“The fireflies o'er the meadow In pulses come and go.”

- James Russell Lowell

Have you ever seen a lake at night filled with fireflies, if you have not then you have seen nothing. The beautiful sight of floating lights that embellish the nights in a festive canopy, they go on and off in a blaze with subtle demeanor. My room was filled with them many a times, gaining shelter from the tormenting rain that just went by they came in. I do keep my windows open and welcoming, they are never closed and hence I do have a large number of visitors day and night and my little friends here were more than just acquaintances. They would sit at the various places that they felt comfortable, transforming my room clad in darkness into a sight as serene as the night at the lake.

But Alas! the times have changed and changed a lot too, the lantern like angels do not come visit anymore, the night skies are darker than the used to me, shrouded by darkness and the pessimistic cacophony of the rumbling concrete jungle on the rise. The fireflies have long been gone, but even today as the rain battles on my walls, trickling and spraying off my window rails, I dream of the lake, the dark, the blue, the silent lake filled with a million tiny sparks in the starry sky.