Fireworks

Tonight the moon is a dark yellow, not quite full. It hangs voluptuously on the edge of the indigo sky, while the first stars begin to appear, twinkling in the night. The low, steady rumble from the nearby highway drones as it always does, and occasionally I can hear an airplane pass overhead. In the distance, miles away, I can hear the muffled poppings of the fireworks. I can imagine the hundreds of thousands of people massed on the beaches, rubbing sweatily against one another in the dark summer's heat, faces turned up at the bedazzled sky.

I have been there many times before. Toes dug into the cool sand, foreign bodies creeping closer and closer as the beach is filled like a sardine can. Listening to the music on someone's tinny portable radio, while on the air, the scent of gunpowder and marijuana wafts by. Having staked out a spot hours and hours before, we would wait, breathless for the hour to come about when the fireworks would start. Then, 15 minutes later it would all end, and we would go scurrying into the crowds, all linking arms and hoping not to get trampled.

One year, we saw a street fight. It was like watching something through glass, something slow motion. Five or six husky men started beating a homeless man all of a sudden. Moving through the liquid air, they landed kicks and punches with dull thuds, before anyone could react. Then, the police were there filling the air with pepper spray, which I didn't even notice until I inhaled it. And as it began, it ended. The crowd filled in and it was like it never happened.

Tonight, I am sitting at home. Quietly reveling in my loneliness. Sometimes it's like a blanket of comfort. If I know nothing else, it's that I am alone, because I choose to be. And that's okay with me, for the most part. I don't need to be in the middle of a crowd.