i cried when i read this story
it's so beautifully written.

Fireflies by Linda Cookson
Yesterday I met a man on a train. Two months ago, he told me, his only daughter had taken the lift up to the top of a tall building in Japan. She was holding a firework in her hand. A Roman candle. She had struck a match and lit the touch-paper, and then she had raised the firework high above her head like a torch. It had started to crackle and splutter. Broken lines of white heat had shot out into the night sky – thin darts of light being fired into the blackness, just as a snake might flick out its tongue. Then a fountain of stars had showered down over her head and into her hair, drenching her in brightness. And then she had jumped. She and the firework hit the pavement together, both of them extinguished in the same split second. The rescue workers hosing the street down afterwards complained very bitterly about the mess.
‘They sent us a photograph,’ he said emptily. ‘But it wasn’t the same. It could have been anyone. So then we asked to have the body flown home. And they said that would cost fourteen thousand pounds. We couldn’t believe it at first. Fourteen thousand! It seemed so incredible. But there was nothing we could do, of course. So we just had to let them cremate her.’ He half-smiled: ‘Did you know that there are seven different grades of cremation in Japan? They all cost different amounts of money.’ I shook my head. I didn’t trust myself to speak.
‘It cost seven hundred pounds,’ he continued. ‘That was the cheapest. And then I went through to Heathrow to pick up the ashes. They were in a metal urn. And the metal urn itself was in a polythene container that said Human Remains. The taxi-driver gave me a queer look. ‘What you got in there, mister?’ he said. ‘A dead dog?’ When I got home I took the urn straight up to her bedroom, and we didn’t open it for two weeks. And all the time in between, I found that I just couldn’t stop thinking about her. Wondering why she did it. Wondering if it hurt. Imagining her falling over and over again, that firework in her hand. Like a shooting star…’
I saw that he was crying quietly. ‘In the end, we went upstairs and lit a candle in the room and said a sort of prayer, and took her down from the shelf. There was a plaque screwed down on the outside. Her date of birth, and the date she died. Only they’d got the first date wrong. They put 1960. But really she was just 25. Then we lifted the lid and looked inside. It seemed so easy at first. It was as if it wasn’t really her. Just ash and bits of flaky stuff. But then my wife saw something glittering, and put her hand in and lifted it out. It was the steel plate she had put in her knee after the biking accident. That was all there was left of her.’
I didn’t know what to say. There we were, in a tin box in the middle of nowhere. I looked at our reflections in the window. Two ghostly heads – facing each other, yet always apart – fixed by the glass into a strange limbo that was neither inside nor out of the train. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said hopelessly.
When I got home, Annie and Sophie were in the kitchen making a cake. Annie’s my wife, Sophie’s our daughter. They had their backs to me, and didn’t hear me come in at first as the radio was playing. Sophie was singing along cheerfully. She’s the only person I’ve ever met who knows the lyrics to all the records they play on the radio. Annie says it’s because she’s watched Top of The Pops every week, almost since it first started. And, not being able to read, she’s developed a much better memory than most people. ‘Not for tunes she hasn’t,’ I always say. Sophie’s got easily the worst singing voice I’ve ever heard in my life. When she was little I used to drive her wild playing ‘Guess the Song’ with her. ‘Jingle bells, jingle bells…’ she would croak tunelessly. I would frown, and pretend to be thinking really hard. ‘Just give me a minute,’ I’d say. ‘Wait. Yes. It’s coming. I’ve got it. Away In A Manger!’ And she would scream with delight.
‘Hey there, growler,’ I said as I came in. ‘What’s cooking?’
Annie explained. ‘It’s Raymond’s twenty-first birthday tomorrow. They’re having a party at the Unit.’ The Unit is where Sophie and her friends go every day during the week. They do piecework, subcontracted out by the larger factories. Until recently they were stamping out the circular pats of butter that go with frozen kippers. But for the last few months they’ve been working on home-made beer kits. They have to weight out the hops (none of them can read, so they do that with a system of coloured buckets) and then put them into cardboard boxes. They work from nine until four. Sophie comes back each evening smelling like a brewery, with hops in her nails and her hair and her pockets. Annie always goes straight upstairs to run her a bath. Then on Friday nights there’s a special ritual, because that’s when she gives us her pay packet and feels very important. She earns five pounds a week.
‘So you’re going to take Raymond a cake are you, Sophie?’ I asked her.
Sophie nodded eagerly, and pointed to a box of Smarties.
‘When the icing’s dry,’ Annie said, ‘we’re going to write his name on top in green and yellow Smarties. Sophie’s already chosen the colours.’
‘Terrific,’ I said. ‘That means I can eat the orange ones.’
Sophie promptly squealed into fits of giggles. She’s got quite a sense of humour, has Sophie. She’s really quick. In fact, one of the main reasons I wish she could talk is that I just know she would tell very good jokes. But talking is beyond her. Memorising songs is one thing. Finding words to make a sentence all of her own is something else. No matter how hard she struggles, she simply can’t make language work for her.
She adores words, that’s the sad thing. She knows that they have magic. Her books, for instance, are her pride and joy – her private treasure chest. She hoards them like a miser. Yet somehow the key is lost to her completely. And every night, at a certain time, her eyes beg silently for either Annie or me to unlock the mystery for her, and read her a story. Sometimes, when she thinks no one’s looking, I see her poring desperately over a printed page, willing it to yield her its secrets. Then I watch her face screw up in frustration, and I wish I could die. And I wonder, all over again, about the strange darkness of her world. What it is that is missing. Why it is that words, for her, are as fascinating but elusive as fireflies.
Sophie watched, hypnotised, as Annie traced RAYMOND into the butter icing with the top of a knife. ‘Go on then, Sophie,’ she smiled, handing her the Smartie box. ‘You finish it.’ And, too-large tongue clamped between her teeth in her familiar attitude of deepest concentration, our daughter carefully laid the green and yellow Smarties along the guide-lines, bringing each letter to colourful life with all the reverence and ceremony of a priestess.
Much later, when the cake had been wrapped in cellophane and put into a large square biscuit tin, and when Annie had sewn a button onto Sophie’s best blue dress ready for the party, and when I had crept quietly out of Sophie’s room, leaving her snoring peacefully, her copy of Jack And The Beanstalk still beside her on the bed, I remembered the man on the train. I went to the door and looked out at the night sky. High above me, I saw the tail-lights of an aeroplane winking far away into the distance. And I wondered where it was going, and I thought of Japan. Then I pictured a girl – thousands of miles and a lifetime away – who had blazed a trail of her own through the darkness, and made fire come out of the sky.
I turned out the light in the hallway. The moonlight spilled like water down the wall.
I had a strange dream during the night. I dreamed about fireflies. I dreamed that it was summer, and that Annie and Sophie and I were on a long white beach somewhere far away. It was evening time. But it was still so hot that the sand was warm beneath our feet, and a greenish haze was gleaming above the water. The beach was deserted, I remember, and we were sitting together, the three of us, underneath a curious tree that spread a shadow over the sand. The air was hung with a deep exotic perfume that I couldn’t identify, and I remember feeling wonderful. I was drinking a can of beer – much to Sophie’s disapproval: she can’t understand how anyone could possibly want anything to do with the stuff. And Annie was reading Robinson Crusoe aloud. Sophie was spellbound. It’s a story she’s known for years and years now, but it never fails to thrill her.
Then Annie came to Crusoe’s discovery in the cave. ‘I saw two broad shining eyes belonging to some creature,’ she read, ‘whether devil or man I knew not. They twinkled like two stars.’ I looked at Sophie. Her eyes were shining with excitement. Annie continued: ‘But I knew that there could be nothing in this cave that was more frightful than myself; so, plucking up my courage, I took up a great firebrand, and in I rushed again, with a stick flaming in my hand.’ Sophie was staring intently at Annie’s face. Her fists were clenched tightly as she waited, rapt, to see whether Crusoe would still escape with his life – or whether this time might bring some catastrophe. For each visit to the cave is to her an entirely new experience.
Very slowly, Annie read on: ‘Encouraging myself a little by considering that the power and presence of God was everywhere and was able to protect me, I stepped forward again.’ Sophie’s mouth was wide open. ‘And by the light of the firebrand, holding it a little over my head, I saw lying on the ground a most monstrous frightful old he-goat…’
There was a squeal of the most absolute joy then from Sophie. The whole of the night air re-echoed with the purity of her laughter. Even the sea seemed to ripple with it. ‘And that’s all we’ve got time for this evening,’ said Annie.
We gathered up our bits and pieces from under the tree, and began to walk home along the beach. Then, looking out over the water as we walked, I saw that the strange greenish haze was not heat haze at all. It was fireflies. Hundreds of them. A pageant of them. All united in some strange and wonderful magic dance above the emerald water.
I awoke from my dream to the sound of loud splashing noises from the bathroom. Sophie was having her bath. Getting Sophie up and dressed in the mornings takes quite a long time. She has unusually sensitive skin that has to be washed very gently with a special liquid soap. Ordinary soap brings her out in a rash. And she has a bad eye condition. Her eyelids gum together during the night, so she can’t see at all when she first wakes up. Her eyes have to be bathed carefully in warm water, and then treated with an ointment. All in all, it generally takes about two hours. She hates to be hurried. So Annie and I have a routine, each of us getting up at six on alternate mornings, to help get her ready for the Unit. This morning was Annie’s turn.
I lay thinking about the dream for a little while. The memory of it was still glowing inside me like a light bulb. I remembered the warmth and power of Annie’s voice, reading a passage that I’ve heard her read so often. I remembered the joyful peal of Sophie’s laughter. And, as though it were real, I remembered the glory of the fireflies and the luminous trial of phosphorescence that had floated over the waves. I felt overwhelmingly happy and serene. Yet still I was haunted by another vision. The vision of a girl in Japan with a firework in her hand. And I longed to know the reason.
Then I caught sight of the time, and hurried downstairs to get breakfast. As I passed the bathroom, I saw a familiar pool of water spreading out beneath the door and onto the landing, and I grinned to myself. Sophie was up to her usual tricks. She always insists on filling the bath almost to the brim. Then she sits on the edge and launches herself into it feet first, like a small tanker on a slipway. Sophie’s not very tall, but she’s very round and heavy. So there’s always a massive displacement of bath water that surges up and over the sides, and floods the floor. We gave up having carpet in the bathroom ages ago. Annie says it’s like having a playful pet whale in the house.
Annie is quite simply, the nicest person I know. Her patience with Sophie is infinite. No matter how long something takes – whatever it is – she’s always there as a support. Watching, waiting, and – if Sophie wants her to – helping. I don’t think I’ve ever once seen her get angry or bad-tempered with her. Annie’s no saint. She smokes and drinks. She cheats at cards. She swears if she hits her thumb with a hammer. But hers is a very rare form of courage. Because it’s courage for both herself and for others. Three weeks after Sophie was born, when they told us what was different about her, Annie locked herself in the bedroom and cried for two days. She couldn’t talk to anyone – not even me. I used to have to leave trays of food outside the door for her. ‘I’ll come out when I’m ready,’ was all she said. And that was the truth. By the time she did come out – pale and needlessly apologetic for the worry she’d caused – she had understood, far better than I ever did, how life was going to be from then on. And she was ready for it.
Annie’s a torch-bearer all right. That bit of my dream made some sense. But the dance of the fireflies – and everything else – was as much of a puzzle to me as ever, as I slopped milk into a jug and hunted for the new packet of cornflakes.
‘Sophie’s on her way down,’ shouted Annie from upstairs. ‘Can you do her hair while I look for a birthday card?’ And in came Sophie, holding two pieces of velvet ribbon. She looked gorgeous. I wolf-whistled my approval of the best blue dress, and she gave me a very grown-up smile and blushed bright pink. I felt terribly proud of her. Then she settled down happily on her favourite stool, and I set about plaiting her hair. Sophie has lovely hair. It’s very soft and fine, almost like a baby’s.
‘Will there be lots of people at the party, Sophie?’ I asked. She nodded, and waved both her hands around. That meant everybody. I’ve got pretty good at reading Sophie’s sign language. ‘And what will you all be singing?’ I asked. She beamed. No further invitation was needed. ‘Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,’ she started yelling at the top of her voice, tone-deaf as ever.
‘Oh, really?’ I said wickedly. ‘Ten Green Bottles? Isn’t that a bit unusual for a birthday party?’
Annie appeared with a birthday card. ‘I’ll write your name on it for you, Sophie,’ she said, reaching across the table for Sophie’s tin of crayons. Sophie and I both looked at the picture doubtfully. ‘Sorry it’s a bit twee,’ said Annie. The picture showed two fluffy kittens popping their heads out of a wicker basket, and the message said ‘Have a real cute day!’
‘Never mind,’ I said consolingly. ‘I’m sure the dog’ll appreciate it. He’ll probably eat it for supper.’ Raymond’s family pet is only just this side of a wolf.
LOVE FROM SOPHIE Annie wrote neatly, underneath the sloppy verse wishing Raymond a purr-fect birthday. Sophie watched closely, solemnly at first and then smiling in recognition as Annie read out the words to her. Then, as though something had suddenly occurred to her, she reached for the crayons herself and began to scribble a private design all of her own across the envelope. Completely absorbed in what she was doing, her head bent over the paper, she devised an elaborate pattern of mysterious symbols, using first one colour and then another. I looked on in some amusement. It was like watching someone engaged in a fascinating but wholly incomprehensible board game.
Then came a shrill hooting noise from outside the house. The minibus had already arrived to collect Sophie and take her to the Unit. It was parked in the lane, down by the gate. The bus windows were all misted up, where eager noses were pressed against the glass, but we could still make out the faces of her friends urging her to hurry. Sophie dashed to the door, and Annie and I hurled ourselves madly round the room – gathering up all the things that she’d need for the day and cramming them into her tartan holdall. It was quite a collection. Her form about the outing to the Adventure Centre. Her soap and towel. Her emergency money. A tube of eye-cream. Her new make-up bag. A spare pair of knickers. And – today’s special – Raymond’s Smartie cake, packed neatly away in its tin. After that, there was time only for one quick kiss for each of us and then she was gone. She rushed off down the garden path and out into the murky October morning. The house fell suddenly silent. Annie poured us both some coffee and we sat quietly together at the kitchen table, recovering our energy. We didn’t talk for a while. Annie was reading something very intently. That’s her way of unwinding. And I was looking out of the window. It was a dull day. The sky was grey and troubled. And gusts of wind were blowing fitfully, like curls of smoke, scattering ashes from the remains of next door’s bonfire across our garden.
The patterns of ash swirled and span before my eyes. Grey and maddening. Matter without form. And yet again I found myself remembering the man on the train. Why had his story been so important to me? Why had its images burned themselves into my heart? What was it that was whirling faster and faster through my mind now, like flakes of hot ash?
‘What’s the matter?’
I heard Annie’s anxious question as though through a long tunnel. And, looking out over the garden, where a squall of wind had begun ripping through the hedgerows, I told her then about my dream. And, haltingly, I told her the story of the man on the train.
She said nothing about the dream, and very little about the story. She said only one thing. ‘Twenty-five?’ she said quietly. ‘That’s the same age of Sophie.’
I couldn’t speak. The most hideous picture had formed in my head. All the familiar things were there. A night sky. A tall building. And a figure at the top of it, waving a lighted firework. Only this time, with a painful effort of will, I forced myself to look closer. And then I saw what I think I’d always half known. The girl with the firework had Sophie’s face. And I began to shake then, racked by the most dreadful spasms of sickness and guilt. For suddenly it had all become clear to me.
The morning was even darker now. The sky seemed burdened and heavy. The winds and the clouds were gathering force, and I could see that it was going to rain at any moment.
‘Can I tell you something?’ I said slowly.
‘Go on,’ said Annie.
‘The first day they told us about Sophie,’ I said, staring blankly out of the window, ‘the day you went up to the room and hid away from me. Do you know how I felt then?’ Annie didn’t speak. Outside, the wind was whirling dead leaves from the trees, spinning them through the air, bowling them scornfully down the pathway in crazy drunken cartwheels. ‘I sat here,’ I said, ‘here in this chair, all on my own. Just looking into the fire. Sometimes Sophie would start to cry in the other room. I’d hear her, quite distinctly, but I’d do nothing at all about it. Deliberately. I simply couldn’t make myself move. Can you begin to imagine what I was thinking?’
It had finally started to rain. Splashes of water were throwing themselves blindly against the window, smashing into the glass. They shattered like moths on a car windscreen. Then I watched them stream away into nothingness. My vision was blurring. I couldn’t look at Annie. ‘I wanted her to die,’ I said miserably. ‘That was all I wanted in the whole world. Her to die. Then you would come back to me. And everything could be just as it was before.’ I couldn’t see anything any more. I was staring straight into silence. All the secret shame that had been welling up inside me for twenty-five years had finally flooded out. At last I’d said it. Yet I felt no relief at all – only utter desolation and wretchedness. ‘Can you every forgive me?’ I said.
Neither of us spoke for what felt like a very long time. I could hear my watch ticking. I was standing on the edge of darkness with a lighted firework in my hand. Then calm, and low, came Annie’s voice. ‘Have you never realised that I was thinking exactly the same thing?’ she said softly.
That was all she said. She didn’t need to say anything else. A dark shadow was leaving me, like a ghost vanishing at cock-crow. The non-existent firework span out of my hand into a blackness that was no longer there. And very slowly, with a grave and growing sense of wonder, I became conscious of a light more intense and a stillness more perfect than anything I’d every known before.
Outside, the wind and the rain were dying away now, and – through window-panes washed clean by the rainwater – I saw that everything was quiet once more in the garden. Only the gate was still moving. It swung open, just as Sophie had left it. And in a few hours’ time – to our joy and to hers – she would be rushing back through it again, happy and laughing. A little fat figure with shining eyes – velvet ribbons no doubt unfastened by then, but still bright and beautiful in her very best blue dress. Sophie. Our daughter.
Then I felt Annie pass something to me, across the table. ‘What is it?’ I said.
It was the envelope that Sophie had been drawing on. In her excitement she had forgotten to take it with her. Annie turned it upside down for me carefully. And it was only then that I saw what had appeared to me at first as scribble, a random collection of coloured shapes, was not scribble after all. The letters were hesitant and shaky, formed with great labour in thick wax crayon by someone who had never written a word before in her whole life. Yet they were completely unmistakable all the same – seven green and yellow letters arranged in perfect sequence from R to the D. They were the letters from the top of the birthday cake.
Annie looked at me and smiled. ‘It’s a firefly,’ she said.

ok, so i must be crazy for typing all that up. wanted to look for it online, but couldn't find it. but it really is worth sharing. a great piece of writing =]
the more times i read through it, the more there is to discover. haha hope you liked it as well (if you bothered to read it xD)
it's stories like this that make me truly appreciate the power of the english language. beyond the fantasies of harry potter and the twilight saga (which i am sooo crazy over. in my own defence, i read the first book, twilight, wayyyyyy before all this twilight craziness started) there's this whole other realm of very personal, touching stories. stories that are different to everyone, that particularly touch some people... the writer is an artist, who carefully paints pictures with her (in this case) words, who builds layer upon layer of colour and depth...
hmm sort of like an optical illusion, where they tell you "see this is both a pillar and two people facing each other" and you're just like.. "huh really? i can't see it!" and then suddenly "OH MY GOSH I SEE IT THAT'S JUST SO COOL!!!!!!"
(sorry i suck at describing feelings)
but yes, i can relate to the story on so many different levels, it's just wonderful =]

Reading List 2011