Rules And Roses🌹

Fireflies in a Car Ride

Fireflies in a Car Ride
| an elegant memory | <3

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The ignition of the car turns off and the 11-year old girl at the passengers seat stirs a little, going back and forth from the state of sleep and awakeness.

She squints at the windshield, looking through it to ogle at the night sky. Painted in shades of indigo and black. Looking like a dark blanket over the Earth. Any mistakes made in the dark of the night are covered and shaded by the night sky, ending up forgiven and diminished in the light of the day.

She groans and tucks her feet under herself, nestled between the leather-cloth of the carseat and the clothed skin of her stubby thighs. She pulls the blanket to her chin and snuggles against it, feeling sleep prickling at her veins again.

Her father chuckles from the drivers seat, and nudges her arm and shakes her awake.

"Whaaat? I'm sleepy", the girl whines and wrinkles her eyelids shut to show it to her father that she's sleepy.

He chuckles and opens his car door, the gush of cold wind makes his daughter whine again.
"C'mon kid. Your sister is already out. It's been hours since we've been in the car. Let's go stretch for a minute", he says to her and tucks a strand of her hair behind his ear and tells her to get out of the car again with a much more urgent tone.

The girl whines and with a physical shake of her body, the blanket gets slid down her body. Her stubby fingers catch it before touching the dirty bottom floor of the car, crumpling it and throwing it in the backseat with half-open eyes.

She pushes her hair out of her eyes and grabs her glasses which her father thought were the least nerdiest frames that he could find.

The girl widens her eyes and her father then opens her car door. A visible shiver runs through her as the chilly night hits her skin. Her nose scrunches up at her father as she rubs her palms over her arms. "I was sleeping so peacefully."

Her father simply chuckles in the knowledge that she won't regret what she'll be seeing.

"C'mon!!!", The girl hears her sister exclaim presumably to her.

The preteen girl groans and jumps out of the car and breaks into a yawn immediately. Eyes squinted shut and arms spread out. As soon as she shakes out of it and opens her eyes, a gasp erupts out of her.

"Oh my…", her heart is stuck in her throat at the beautiful image in front of her. As a girl, who grew up in the much more modern side of the city, who had not touched true mother earth in her life had to be flabbergasted by just. Genuine. Nature.

She points at it and turns to her father with stars in her doe eyes. He basks in it as long as he can, because he knows that one day those same eyes won't be doe anymore and they won't look at him with curiosity and childishness but with annoyance.

"A-are those fireflies?!", his daughter stutters out in excitement and when he nods, she looks back at the bunch of little light insects fluttering around in the leaves with a careless beauty.

He smiles at it. Knowing that one day, she will turn ignorant towards nature. The voice that is now cute and high-pitched and gasps to every piece of information he shares will eventually with age turn low and mature, raspy even and will be relaying information to him at some point to some extent.

He walks to his children and listens to them squeal and bounce to the beautiful sight.

"Don't scream idiot! You'll scare them away!", His elder daughter hits her sister's arm with a half-annoyed expression.

"I can't help it!"

He listens to their conversations without any involvement. He watches then grow and evolve into something that surprises him every single time.

And yet.

The only thing he can think about is that their mother is missing it all.

That his wife who has the same rights to see her children learn and grow is willfully denying herself of it.

The pity he feels can't be shared or understood.

"Daddy…", his younger daughter turns to him with a light in her eyes similar to the light tingling in the belly of the fireflies.

"Yes, darling?", He replies with a warm smile. The kind of smile that makes you feel as safe as you can feel.

"Can we take it home?", She asks quietly and with the softness of her expression, he almost says yes but then thinks of the practicality of it.

He pulls her close and musses her hair up. "No, darling. Its a sight to be seen but not to have."

He pulls his elder daughter to the side of his left hip. "Plus, this wouldn't be as exciting if you saw this everyday, right?"

His daughters nod and lean their heads on him and he thinks to himself, there couldn't be a better place in life than to enjoy the simple things in life with your children.

Children are truly a beautiful thing to have in life. To watch them grow, the joy one has simply cannot be described in words, it can only be felt.

And with every single moment he spent with his daughters, it was a guarantee that he will spend his entire life and more preaching that to people.

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