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Fireflies

“The fireflies flew up into the sky, free.
I watched them until I could no longer tell them apart from the stars.”

― Paul Pen, The Light of the Fireflies


I can’t remember if I cried when I watched Grave of the Fireflies. It was many years back and probably I was bored of the low definition and excessively emotional plots, can’t remember actually. But I still remember one thing— how responsibility turns a child into a man! That one particular thing I won’t forget.

However, do fireflies wander in the graveyard in reality?

I didn’t ever have to find out the answer to the question as from a young age, I have seen them around twinkling like the stars in the nearby bushes. And surprisingly, there are two graveyards close to our house— one on the south and another on the north side— quite a setting for people with a weak heart.

But even the weakest heart won’t want to miss to follow the yellow-green dots that are put on a static display at night, especially, when it’s mid-summer. And most of their stages are in those graveyards. There’s nothing to be surprised about why they prefer those places, as there are barely any greenery attachments eligible for a perfect hideout except for those desolate haunting premises.

As I have retreated to my hometown for the coming festival, I can enjoy their dancing in the jungle once again. Sometimes I feel privileged to be here, in the village away from all those noises and toxic air. And my mind gets replenished with the chance to walk on the dirt barefoot. With the fast industrialisation even in the rural areas, I don’t think I can breathe the fresh air in 5-8 years and it’s only a matter of time before these quiet areas will be crowded with unknown faces.

Sometimes I wonder if there’ll be any place left to bury our people. With the land price going higher and higher, I think many of us are already remorseful allocating a substantial portion of our property to the family graveyard. Even though those places were dirt cheap 10 years ago, a single plot of land of 1 decimal is now worth 1 million to the least these days. Whatever— they are not my lands and I won’t even be buried in that expensive places as we have our own place, allocated for that specific purposes. But those fireflies— they are lucky to have them around. And the declining number of their kinds sometimes makes me nostalgic. They remind me of my childhood when we had them in a great number— like the million stars in the sky, twinkling with yellow dots as soon as the night falls.

Also, they remind me of the obvious death.

Whenever my eyes get caught with such flashy lights in the dark, I know it’s somewhere in those graveyards that I used to be afraid of in my childhood. Now that I am grown up, that particular place doesn’t create fear in my mind but what’d happen when I’m buried there does. It’s such a fear that those cheering fireflies can’t even mask it with their excellence.


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