something cataclysmic

by Kerry Flannagan

Age 15

(from 826michigan)

She caught the firefly so carefully that when the insect was enveloped in her soft hands, it barely noticed. Contentedly, it rested in her smooth, round palm, as it had done so many times, in so many other palms. Cupped securely, the firefly waited for the universe to come back and replace all the trees and pollen and spontaneous starts.

It knew the universe would come back. It knew because the first time, in the beginning, when it was embraced and suspended in strange limbo, it had exploded wth the unusual temerity that comes from knowing something cataclysmic is happening. It had beaten the sides of its prison, tiny weight insignificant against hands larger than any insect. But it was released, the world renewed itself, and the firefly had spun away to grow and think.

It was caught other times, and each time it waited for the universe again. It wanted to be frustrated, grapple with a miasma of living things. It wanted a night too large for it to light, but the shock of hands wore off and they lost their size. Warm palms made it too easy to sleep. So it wanted to be released, again and again, and each time it was caught, the hands eventually let it go.

The firefly slowed down over time, because around it, nothing changed, and the world was wiser than any insect. It had one summer that rolled slowly into a warm calm and the firefly grew to enjoy the quiet of nightcrawlers and grass and crickets. It spent nights quietly with all the small things that were beautiful and loved what it couldn't know about them. Caught by hands, it rested on soft skin and thought about how the lines looked like the lines in a fly's wing. When the world was reborn because the hands let the firefly go, it marveled at how everything stayed the same.

Slowly, the world was wearing itself out with being born again and again. The universe, so full of shine and light nights, couldn't sustain itself with all the energy it put into existing again, every time the firefly was released. The lines in hands no longer meant anything important, and it started to notice how the dim luster of their skin was so much like the moon.

And so this time, when the girl caught it, and the insect waited in her soft hands, as she released it and named it Love, as it flew from her in a straight, calm line, it saw that this universe was probably the last one. Details blurred together into cohesive objects, the night was dimmer than it had ever seemed, and it realized with some dissapointment that it could no longer fly any higher than the trees. It wouldn't reach anything bigger than them. But the firefly shone as it flew, glad that love had ended the world.