First Firefly

"A firefly!" said my friend Natalie. We were walking in the wood at dusk.

"Where??" I whirled around, but saw only leaves, that glowed only in the waning sun.

"You didn't see it? Wait, there it is again. Look!"

"Where?" I searched the leaves and vines, in vain. I waited anyway, watching. I was looking for a glowing, floating thing, like the searchlight of a microscopic airplane. Nothing, nothing--Until suddenly: a flicker of pale light! and again, flying. There! and gone again, leaving the leaves like an empty stage. But I had seen the star, the firefly: a green spark in the green forest. I had expected a leisurely movement, a gentle and steady light. Instead, I glimpsed a dancing spark, a flicker of the fey in a life of the predictable. Now I burn to dance as a firefly, in the green wood, at dusk.