Tags
cellie, darkness, fields, freedom, gift, light, lightning bug, Prison, prison life
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”—John 1:5
It’s almost the end of August and I had not seen a firefly all summer. The lights here are too bright, drowning out the stars and apparently keeping away the lightning bugs. Last year at the county prison I could look out through the holes in the frosted windows and see the lighting bugs flashing. But this place is lit up somewhere between a mall parking lot and a football field. Maybe there are fireflies around, but they just don’t realize that it’s nighttime-time to flash their light language to one another. Or maybe they all just go away from the lights, going outside the fences and razor wire to the surrounding fields.
But yesterday I found a lighting bug in the entryway to our cell block. He was climbing on the wall right after lunchtime. And of course I carefully reached out, closed my hand around it, and took it to my cell. Another inmate asked me what I was doing with that bug. I said it was a firefly, and I was going to keep it in my cell to see it light up. “In a jar?” “No,” I replied. “I’ll just let him crawl and fly around the cell.” From his expression, I knew he thought that was a little strange.
Most of the inmates here grew up in cities, not out in the country. Many would not even consider touching a bug, let alone taking it to their cell. Last week there was a small frog near the medical building. It was a little larger than a quarter. One of the city inmates called over another inmate and said, “Look at this big ass frog.” To him it was big – to me, who had chased bullfrogs around ponds, it was tiny. For a minute I almost picked up the frog to take back to my cell. But I figured some CO would probably write me up if he saw me. Although the only rule I could find in the handbook seemed to be “no pets are allowed, except as permitted for the Prison Pup Program.”
I brought the lighting bug into my cell and introduced it to my cellie. He also wondered if I was going to put it in a jar. I placed it gently on the wall by our desk and told him it was a free range lightning bug – no jar. “What’s it’s name?” my cellie asked. I hadn’t thought about a name. My first thought was “Sparky”, but that name was already taken. Sparky is the imaginary tick that lives on my cellie’s body — but that’s just a little too strange to go into right now. So my cellie picked “Flash,” which is a pretty decent name for a firefly.
Flash, the lightning bug crawled around throughout the afternoon, checking out his concrete and metal surroundings. We were careful to make sure we knew where Flash was at before we walked around, so that we didn’t step on him. He spent most of the day in the corners of the room.
After supper, as it grew dark outside, Flash became more active, even flying around the cell. But he did not light up. We had the cell light turned out, but the TV was on. Maybe it was still too light. After watching PBS Nova about the origin of life on earth, a program called “Australia’s first 4 Billion Years.” [my cellie was really really excited about watching that!] I turned off the tv at 10pm. My cellie, simply overwhelmed with the wonder of the Paleozoic era, had fallen asleep.
Flash was on the wall beside my top bunk. As I settled into bed, I could see him dimly His wings buzzed and he flew out to the center of the cell. Then his tail lit up with a burst of bright neon green, one big burst as he flew around, making a zigzag through the air.
“Cellie! “ I shouted. “ Flash is lighting up.” My cellie woke up and we waited and waited for another flash, but there was only the one. I apologized to my cellie for waking him up, but he was already back asleep. Then I closed my eyes and thanked God for getting to see a lightning bug this summer. It’s amazing how little things can mean so much.
The next morning as we headed out to breakfast I gathered Flash in my hand and took him outside, where he needed to be. He had given a gift to me- some light for the darkness. And I wanted him to have his freedom. I don’t know if I’ll see another firefly this summer, but I can still see that burst of green in my cell, reminding me that out there are fields and fields of lightning bugs, just waiting for me to come out of here and see them.