THE FIREWORKS looked almost like blossoming flowers as they set off in the sky. Blooming, wilting, falling away—repeat—one after the other, three at once, two at once, one at a time.
As I stood among my friends, in the middle of the field where we once played alongside, and sometimes against, one another during PE class, I thought for a moment, if there was an existence watching us from above—the sky and the stars themselves, a divine being of some sort or the God we were taught about—did we seem like flowers to them too at this moment?
Blooming, wilting, about to fall away from the soil where we have been rooted for the past four years, others five or more—to be swept away, blown or carried, then to start anew elsewhere, as do the pollens of fallen flowers, and these fireworks once they have burned out and what is left of them, due for recycling—to become something other, of greater or lesser importance, than what they once were.
I shake my head and take a breath. I blink to refocus my eyes on the display.
Never mind for now wilting and falling away, divine intervention or God’s design. At least tonight, at this moment—at least from where I stand and how I see it, we bloom. F MARIA ANTOINETTE A. MALICSE
