Nokorobi

Surajit Manna, 18MS

17/07/2019

And when we returned,

My friend showed us the fair of flaring fireflies.

They are like human souls,

The light, the only thing that

Other flies cared about.

No one would approach you if you didn't flicker.

(Just so you know, we returned there again, only to venture further along the unending wound across the two provinces of floating cinders, so far, that before we knew, they were there, they have caught the night sky and brought it down, the whole Andromeda played out in the forest that night and as the darkness descended, the three worlds in front of you blur out, unseen denizens pass through the realms at will, no one belongs to anywhere and you are left alone, to drown in something too beautiful, a feeling of fear and beauty inside, as if the embers will engulf you in flames if you remain too long, then we would have become fireflies too, the demons of the three worlds, dead souls replaying the video of their lives, flickering the times of joy, mourning silently the times they sinned, no, I am surer now, the strong loud headlight that chased us away, just retraced the same path again and again, it was a firefly too. We are all but fireflies in our heart, just a little away from the darkness that consumed them they could no longer defeat... Only that we have a choice to get out of it, the demons can’t.)

He captured for me in his hand,

One last time,

A strong lit firefly near the slaughterhouse.

It had a strong desire to flee.

The soul of an animal, he whispered,

"Now, I return to the darkness whence I came,

Free of the things I had to see...

If demons just iterate everything they lived with, bound...

Aren't you one?"