The Myth of Wile E

A Fluther of Fireworks

The night was hot. How hot I couldn't say. I tried getting the temperature from the crickets, but they were chirping way too fast for me to count. I'd have to find a cricket that used the metric system.

My thoughts were interrupted by a popping sound like far-off gunfire, and the fooomph of a rocket launcher, and a bright flash, followed by what sounded like the boom of a cannon. I heard it again, and again, as if another town was returning fire. This continued for several minutes and then I smelled gunpowder. Needless to say, I was alarmed. For as long as I'd lived in the area there'd been bad blood between the neighboring towns of Elsedale and Heresburg over which could claim to be the home of "America's Best Ground-Cherry PieTM." It was a feud supposedly stemming back to a night in 1799 when a gentleman farmer cast aspersions on his neighbor's favorite horse by suggesting that it resembled said neighbor's wife. The men dueled, and their seconds dueled, and their seconds' seconds dueled, and so on. Eighteenth-century weapons being what they were, no one actually managed to hit anyone, nothing was resolved, and the two towns hate each other to this very day, right down to their (slightly) different ways of making ground-cherry pie. Like many locals, I avoided straying into either town for fear that I would be interrogated about my pie allegiances.

So when I heard all those crackles and booms I wondered: Had centuries-old hostilities finally escalated into all-out war?

And then I saw, drifting across the moon, a giant jellyfish shape made of smoke. And I realized it must be the Fourth of July.

Ohhh.

The following night began much the same way—hot, and with flashes and booms off in the distance. Then the rain came, and I thought: so much for the fireworks show. But the flashes and booms kept coming closer, and closer, lighting up the entire sky in a finale that just wouldn't end.

Except this time they weren't fireworks.

Hail bombarded my roof in a sudden burst as if the gods were spilling their marbles. Thunder shook the ground. I thought I heard nearby trees crashing and falling like bowling pins. I could smell the hot piney smoke of a fireplace, only I didn't have any neighbors with fireplaces. (Or without them, for that matter.)

The spider and I hid in the bathroom. Maybe a metal box like our home is the safest place to be in a storm, but still there's that sneaking suspicion that lightning will jump through the window and get you if it sees you.

I tried to look on the bright side (literally): Of the 43,200 seconds of that night, probably every tenth was bright as day. So it's almost like I got 72 extra minutes of daylight. (Just not in a row.)