In a cold dorm room, I focus on sounds.
Someone's laughing as another tells a story in the hallway; the pipes hiding in my walls, creating crowns around my head, gurgle and hiss as someone, somewhere, showers; keys are jangling as someone fusses to get into their room.
Amoungst it all, I hear my roommate's breathing and how it doesn't match with my own.
I inhale as she exhales.
I exhale as she inhales.
I hold my breath, my heart fights me with tiny, red fists of defiance, and then I exhale as my roommate does.
And, suddenly, our breathing pattern is synchronized. For several seconds we are living in exactly the same way.
Somewhere in the world, a wife and a husband breathe each other as they sleep. Their children breathe like their parents, swollen with the life they've been given, and safe in dreams of summer.
In the afternoon the children will run through amber fields, soft textures swiping over their smiles, and creating whispers hard to hear over their laughing and yelling. They will hide in weeds, not a worry in their heads about bugs, snakes, or any other small monsters that could threaten their good-time. They will go on playing, with stomachs they do not realize are empty.
In the evening, the children will catch fireflies. They'll put the bugs of light in a big mason jar and gaze with large eyes at the wonder they've captured. Their noses will touch and their fingers will stain the glass. They will feel like gods and guardians, watching over the world they've made a possibility. They'll giggle and tease as their parents drink wine under an oak tree. And when they ask for a sip their faces wil sour and their lips will frown, and they will vow never to drink again.
In high school, the children won't catch fireflies. They won't enjoy running barefoot as they used to. They will buy shoes. Shoes that commercials tell them to buy; shoes that their friends tell them to wear; shoes that they feel project a corrupted idea of who they are as a person to the world that exists outside of themselves. Their souls will feel like the fireflies, trapped in glass jars. Their faces will always be sour and so drinking adult beverages won't make any difference to them.
And their parents will ask about the fireflies, and wonder when time had caught up with them. They will remember high school and they will laugh. They will remember high school and they will still find themselves crying.
Saturday nights will be spent in an empty house, talking until the early morning, asking, "Remember when...?", and, "Do you still love me?"
The day will come when their children have children, and the wife will be happy and the husband will be worried. They will develop the prideful features of grandparents. They will have soft wrinkles, and careful hands. Their fireplace mantle will be cluttered with photographs of their children and their children's children. Picture frames that they had kept in a drawer, will see daylight. Photographs will find their home. Frames will find their meaning in life.
Their adult-children will drink coffee on the porch with their father late at night. And they will tell the stories of their grown-up life, and they will ask for guidance, and they will be granted forgiveness.
The grandchildren will have ball-playing-hands and bubble-gum breath. They will spend their days outside, running through the amber fields, re-tracing the steps their parents left behind long ago.
And in the evening, they will catch fireflies. They will be proud of their findings and thrust the jars into their grandparents' laps for recognition. And, sometimes, the little ones will feel guilty of their findings, and ask the grandfather to twist open the cap so the fireflies can be free once again.
The day will come when the grandparents die.
They will be in their bed on a warm summer night, with a window open, and pale curtains creating whispers as the wind tangles itself into them. Their room will be painted in blue as the full moon looks down upon a world it will never touch. They will sleep, unaware of their breathing in unison.
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale...
Exhale.
And as their breath releases, fireflies would float from the caves of their mouths, slowly to the ceiling, and, free once again, out the window.
