Lampyridae (A Love Story)

At four in the morning, it woke up and at seven in the evening it was caught in a jar and used as a reading lamp until it sputtered and died. Between those two dynamic and equally earth-shattering moments, it ate, grew, fell in love, fell out of love, fell back in love and then out again. By eight-o’clock that night, when the boy had opened the jar back up to set it free, it had already been dead for a half hour (maybe longer) and it’s rear-end had fizzled out leaving a weird blue glow in the jar and behind the boy’s eyelids.

The boy would always wonder about that after glow. Whenever his mamma would turn the lights out, he’d think of that jar, the one that looked like captured radiation. He’d blink his eyes once or twice, trying to get rid of the image of the room in negative.

This story isn’t about the boy, for the boy was busy living his life. The little thing in the jar, however, had finished and was now reflecting as the air ran out of the Jar. It had lived a very short life, and in the moments of its expiration had glittered and popped as the little light his thorax produced started to die-out. It felt it had spent too much time loving, and not enough time understanding, for now, it had no idea what to do in its current dire circumstances. It spent more time with his small brain clouded with romance and the scents of females, the tiny sparks of loving in the dark, the warmth of nearness, that it was now In great need of escape and hadn’t the capacity. It lay its head down on the cold-ish glass of the bottom of the jar, the part that raised just enough for it to elevate his mandibles and sigh outwardly. It moved its legs to a more comfortable position and watched as its formerly excellent vision began to blur around the edges. I have loved but I have not lived… but what is it to live without having loved? Then, with a moment of self satisfaction, It quietly passed away, leaving a dim blue glow in its wake.