The Firefly People

 Hershel sat in the rocking chair on the porch, in the dusky twilight, before nightfall, alternating between sipping the bourbon and coke he had in an old Mason jar, and coughing up blood and phlegm. The doctor had told him to cut back on his drinking, but what the hell. He was dying. He knew it, and the doctor knew it.

He’d worked at the shipyard for twenty years before they discovered the effects of asbestos. He didn’t regret the job – it’d paid for a house, kept food on the table, and sent two kids to college. His wife, Connie, had passed away the year before. They’d been together since they were kids, next door neighbors. “Doomed to fall in love,” Connie said.

It was one of those sultry August days and it’d been raining. You could see the steam coming off the street as the rain hit the asphalt. And as it got darker the fireflies came out. They always did after a summer rain. Watching them reminded him of a story his wife, as a teenager, had told him of the Firefly People.

“Hersh,” she had said, “you know my grandmother says those fireflies aren’t bugs, but people. A special kind of people. She calls them Firefly People.”

“Baby, that’s just weird.”

“No really, if you think about it. She says that when a person’s dying the world gets dark. God used to send an angel to guide them through that darkness, but He found that angels were too scary…”

 Hershel just laughed it off and promptly forgot about it, at that moment he had more important things to consider – like how to get a first kiss.

“First kiss,” he mumbled to himself, and smiled. It had become a kind of joke between them, so much so that, when Connie was passing she had motioned for him to come close to her and, when he leaned over her she said, “First kiss.” And then she was gone.

In the moments after she passed he looked out the window so that the staff wouldn’t see him crying. A nurse came and stood beside him, looked out the window and remarked, “Look at all those lightning bugs. Odd for them to be out so early.”

“Fireflies,” Hershel responded.

“Yeah, some people call them that too.”

Hershel started coughing again. Coughing real bad. The kind of coughing where you cough so hard you can’t catch your breath. He reached for his heart not sure if he was having a heart attack, or just painful chest spasms. After a few minutes the coughing and spasms eased.

“Damn it, God, just take me and let it be done,” he said. “Just let it be done.”

He looked out at the front yard, and saw how much darker it had become as dusk turned to night. And how many more fireflies had come out. He reckoned there must be a hundred or more. He’d never seen this many.

As he watched them he started day dreaming. He could see himself as a kid with some of his friends trying to catch them in empty mayonnaise jars to make “lanterns.” As he watched one of his friends, Billy, turned and looked right at him and said, “Hershy Boy, come on out and help us get some lightning in a jar.”

He smiled at that memory as another spasm of pain convulsed his chest. He thought he heard his dad’s voice and turned to see his parents standing on the porch beside him, smiling, and his dad said, “Son go on out there and play.”

But his parents had both died in a car crash with a drunk driver some twenty years ago. And Billy had died in a jungle in Vietnam.

The coughing started again. This time more painful than he ever remembered it. And more phlegm and blood than he’d ever seen.

“Hersh?” a girl’s soft voice asked. “Hersh, come off the porch and help me catch some fireflies.”

He peered out into the yard. His eyes were filling with tears because of the pain, and the night seemed to be falling quickly. It was no longer dusk, but inky black. Except for the fireflies. And the kids. The front yard was full of kids. Billy, Tommy the “Termite,” and many others from the neighborhood and school days.

And in the midst of them was Connie, as young and pretty as when he first met her. She approached him, hands outstretched, “Come here, baby. Come off the porch.”

“I can’t,” he gasped. “My chest…the pain…”

“It’ll lessen when you come to me,” Connie beckoned. Now she was in her wedding dress. Hershel remembered how beautiful she had looked on their wedding day.

He tried to stand, but fell to his knees in pain.

“Let me help you son,” a voice said beside him. Strong arms lifted him up. Hershel turned to see his dad smiling at him. The fireflies were all over the porch now, making it far brighter than any porch light could have illuminated it.

Together they walked off the porch towards Connie. She was Hershel’s age now, but smiling as she reached out and pulled him into her arms.

“Firefly people,” Hershel said. “Well I’ll be…”

The yard was so full of fireflies you’d never know it was night.