A Side Note: Fireflies

Where to Start?

I worked for ten hours straight today. It's something people do all the time, especially in this overworked society we have, but there was something special about those ten hours.

My boss left the shop early, leaving me alone with my thoughts and a pile of work to the ceiling. I worked through it, the pile dwindling to something a little more manageable.

Half a pack of cigarettes and several hours later, I was something close to caught up, and took a moment to breathe. I took a last break before cleaning up, propping open the back door for another drag, hoping to sort my thoughts as I filled my lungs.

The sun had set, gloriously, shining through the rain, turning what had been a dreary afternoon into gold and diamonds. The sunlight had streaked into the front windows, painting the store with pink and copper, only to end in the quiet sapphire of creeping night.

I was humming, probably tunelessly, the alley and the surrounding area quiet. My mood had been elevated in the past few days, a gold wash of contentment coloring the whole word beautiful.

As silly as it sounds, everything began with a trip to TJ Max.

We'd scoured the city for it, having heard it rumored somewhere near the WalMart in our new city. Both my housemate, Maggie, and I are new here, and we don't know the town well, and were excited to find something familiar to us both nestled hidden in our new residence. The store was huge, and offered beautiful solutions to the limited budget.

The shirt I'd found was a rich shade of royal blue, hugging my hips and accentuating my chest in a glorious showing of femininity (for which I am not known to willingly subject myself). Twin lines of royal blue buttons curled over my breasts, drawing almost uncomfortable attention to them.

But something had been changing in me recently, a stirring of desire to dress like a member of my own sex. I'd been a jeans-and-t-shirt kid for so long, I'd almost forgotten my girlish desire to play dress-up.

With my hair finally back to it's native black (with a touch of purple highlights, which are not at all natural), the royal blue looked stunning and I flirted precociously with myself in the mirror.

I'm not entirely sure what prompted me to wear it to the hockey rink; just hoping for acknowledgment of my gender from the boys I'd been hanging around with for so long. Or perhaps, it was something of my unforeseen and rather unpleasant crush on one of the boys, Mike, who is completely unavailable.

Funny, I'd expected smiles, maybe a rowdy comment or two, as I walked back to the scorekeeping box, but the only one who seemed to notice was Mike.

I sat outside of my work and wondered on that, smoking the last cigarette in the pack; even though I knew in my heart I had no chance with him, it was nice to be noticed, nice to know my efforts had been appreciated by someone.

I watched the sky grow darker with a calm sense of silence to the evening. My thoughts tumbled around in my head, then settled, winking out as the stars do at dawn, until I twiddled with my lighter with a light-hearted, contented mindlessness.

A firefly alighted by my feet, glowing with a startling suddenness, seeming to appear out of nowhere. I mused to myself that it had been a long time since I'd seen a firefly, welcoming the night.

Or perhaps, it had just been a long time since I'd noticed them.

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Last Side Note: May 23, 2008

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