I sit and wait for the show to begin in the early morning theater of my dark garage. Eyes flickering over the panoramic screen embedded in my side of the overhead doors. No movement, a faint twittering of an early-rising bird, and then…
A yellow glow comes dancing from the right; bobbing slightly in its flight as if it’s stayed a little longer than it should at the company Christmas party. A giant lightning bug, I think; mutated in its greatness to last beyond the frost. Or no, that makes no sense; it is, I’m sure, a Christmas candle escaped from its placement in the window of the house across the street; his brothers shining brightly at his daring, cheer him on.
But the bouncing light reveals a familiar rhythm in my mind, and there–a glimpse of shadow it drags beneath it and behind.
As it turns into fact–An early morning jogger with a headlamp—I am a little disappointed. But the moments just before the revelation, those spent in reading story through my own creative whim, were part of what learning how to read and write is all about.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology