By Susannah Rigg

“Their flashes are synchronised,” he told me, as he draped his arm over my shoulder.

I peered into the trees to see what he was telling me. I saw nothing until suddenly I saw everything. Tiny flashes of greeny-yellowish light lit up the night, the canopy of leaves creating a cave of darkness. I stepped forward, drawn in. His arm flopped from my shoulder, but he pulled me back by my waist.

“Watch. Next time count the flashes,” he said.

I watched holding onto my breath as if to let it go would be to interfere with the magic unfolding.

“One, two, three, four, five, six,” I whispered with each light. Then darkness.

“The males all flash together, and they only get more synchronised as the night goes on, as if they move into a perfect dance,” he said swaying slightly as he spoke.

We’d danced together the night before and never quite arrived at our rhythm. He moved on the offbeat as if the drum never found his heart. I’d smiled politely and resisted the urge to squirrel free from his arms.

“So, fireflies are like women who live together synchronising their cycles,” I said.

“That’s a myth,” he laughed.

“Says the male doctors.” I felt my shoulders rise. “Women would say otherwise.”

His chuckle that hinted that he believed me, or at least he wasn’t going to argue, made me stand down. I almost always stood down. The good girl.

“One, two, three, four, five, six,” I counted again, hypnotized by how beautiful these flying beetles looked amid the dark forest. Fairy lights. I was reminded of a childhood that I hadn’t had but one that I’d lived via books. Children in the countryside, catching fireflies in jars. Children with sticky fingers and roughed-up knees, grass stains and wispy hair. I had been a child forced to stay clean, to keep my whites white. The good girl.

“They’re battling for the females’ attention, but they’re indistinguishable from each other. They say they have to flash together to show the female that they’re the right species.”

I heard his words and yet what captivated me was the fluttering in my stomach every time they flashed, as if I was a female firefly being lured in by the display. I edged in closer.

“Hey, don’t get in too close, remember. You can risk harming them,” he said.

Don’t do that Helen, you’ll ruin your nice dress. The voice I heard, my father’s.

I stepped back but could barely resist the magnetic pull of the pulsating light.

“Aren’t they cool?” he said with a chuckle, draping his arm over me again. It was heavy like a dead slab of beef.

I didn’t reply because I couldn’t. To me they weren’t “cool,” they were wondrous. Little Helen who lay crushed inside me, protected all around by a body that appeared to have aged, was unfurling, a crumpled piece of paper re-finding its form.

The forest was whispering to me, as wind raked through the leaves I heard my name. The call of an owl seemed to say, come, come.

His breath soggied my neck as he leaned closer, wanting more of me, but wanting me contained. I felt his pulse jittery, as if he sensed me disappearing from him, as if he could feel what was happening inside me.

One, two, three, four, five, six, the flashes came again and again, each one like a lighthouse, warning of ragged rocks.  

I stepped one foot forward as if I was just changing position. I watched the flashes, hypnotised, seeing how they were moving into a more synchronic pulse. Little Helen was knocking on my heart.

One, two, three, four, five, six. Let’s go and play, she said.

“We should head back now,” he said.

I was startled by his presence. Annoyed. “Can we stay a little longer?”

“Erm, maybe five minutes? I’m getting cold and hungry.”

“Why don’t you go ahead? I’ll meet you back at the car,” I said, surprising myself.

If he argued, I didn’t hear him and when I next turned, I saw the back of his head and his headtorch cutting light through the path of the trees. I exhaled.

One, two, three, four, five, six. Darkness fell, I moved closer. One, two, three, four, five, six. Closer still.

I stepped deeper into the cavern of trees. Flashes of the yet unsynchronised males lighting up the air.

Helen is so good. She won best behaved in class two years running. My father’s voice again.

I untied my hiking boots, pulled them off, felt my bare feet sink into the leaves, the mulch, the squelchy forest night seeping between my toes. The deeper in I went the more consumed I became, as if I were eating the smell of the forest, ripping at it with my teeth.

One, two, three, four, five, six, my pulse was now synchronised with theirs. A beat that moved through my entire body. Throbbing.

I cupped my hands, reached forward, and grabbed at the light, closing my palms to contain it. I wanted to own it. To dominate it. The way I had been dominated. I peered through a gap between my thumbs but it was empty. Little Helen stamped her foot, hot air streaming from her nostrils.

I marched deeper into the forest, my shirt getting caught on branches I couldn’t see within the darkness. It ripped, I let it fall.  

We don’t like Helen to play out at night. She always comes inside as soon as dusk falls.

I reached out, swiping. Culling fireflies with my bare hands.

I cupped by palms again and dragged them through the air. And then I felt it, wiggling. I peeped in and there it was. A tiny male, light beating.

One, two, three, four, five, six. I watched through my peephole. His pulse steady for a while before it began to change, hitting the offbeat, no longer beating with his buddies.

I pulled my hands close to my heart. Helen was willing it to synchronise with hers. Scowling at him. Why won’t you synchronise? His light began to fade.

Squash him, little Helen said. I resisted. Squash him, she said again.

I clasped my fists, felt his soggy goo fill my palms.  

I peered in and saw a dim, laboured light pulse, dragging, barely visible.

More, little Helen screamed.

I thrust my hand out, captured another.

Eat it.

I didn’t wait. I crushed it between my teeth, swallowed it down. The flashes in the forest became frantic, unsynchronised, clanking. Panic spreading.

Eat more.

I swiped handfuls now, filling my mouth with their flashing bodies. My teeth ripping them apart.

My heart now pumped at their beat, one, two, three, four, five, six. It was too fast. The pulse quickening my breath. But Helen wanted more, she was ravenous. I grabbed out and pulled more flashing bodies into my mouth. Chewing, retching with the taste of the bitter bugs trailing down my esophagus.

My heart sped, my mouth was full, I couldn’t breathe, but Helen wasn’t satisfied. She screamed inside me. I dropped myself down into the leaves, grabbing at the bugs in the air, swallowing them. But they were moving away from me, warned by the others, dimming their lights. The synchronisation began to fail, my pulse dropped with it. My heart barely pumping.  

One, I gasped for breath.

Two, my hand grabbed at the air but found nothing.

Three, I tried to call for help but my throat was full of bugs.

Four, I shovelled myself into fetal position

Five, I shut my eyes.

Six, Helen was such a good girl.

~~~~~

Originally from London, Susannah has lived in Mexico for thirteen years. After a decade as a travel writer, she now devotes herself to writing fiction and working as a writing mentor. Her fiction has been published by Inkfish Magazine and she is currently querying a contemporary novel, set in Mexico City, while writing a new novel set in her native London. Susannah has a wandering soul, but in writing she always finds her home.