She said the fireflies are dying. Not enough moonlight, she thinks, to guide them back to the swamp. Her fingers move over the cracked ceramic mug, too warm from the coffee that was never really coffee. But she won’t tell you that. She never tells you what she means.
She said she can smell them still. The ones that lived once, back when the wetland was alive with their hum. "That summer," she whispers, "before the dry winds made it all disappear." You nod. She’s always saying it, that summer. As if it was the only thing real.
The dry wind pushes dust across the porch, sifting through the cracks of the faded wood. She watches it scatter, her eyes not quite focused. There’s a sound, the low rumble of a truck in the distance. You wonder if it’s the one that used to come to pick up the old barrels, or if it’s just another echo from the past.
But she’s still talking, her words like smoke in the air. She speaks of the swamp, of summers spent hiding beneath the cypress, of her father’s hands carving the world out of nothing, of waiting for the rains to come. She speaks like she hasn’t forgotten the sound of their laughter, like she hasn’t been left with the empty spaces in the backyard, with the patches of dirt where things used to grow.
You don’t ask her to stop.
You look down at your hands, remembering how they used to hold her once, tightly.
“Do you remember?” she asks, as if the answer’s in the wind. But the fireflies are gone, and you wonder if you ever really saw them at all.
Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films. Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete Bluesky: zaryfekete.bsky.social
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