Chasing Fireflies

by Charles Martin

At bedtime they led me to my room on the second floor; it sat on the front of the house just across the hall from theirs. It had a small bed and one dresser. Above hung a ceiling fan, and you could see the underside of the tin roof. I didn’t want to go to bed, but they tucked me in, turned out the light, and pulled my door half-shut. He must’ve known or talked to somebody at my last home. Us foundlings never slept much. You could get through the days okay, but nighttime was the hardest. It’s when you remembered and wondered. I heard the front door shut, so I climbed over to the window and looked out. He walked out beneath the moonlight into the yard, grabbed the sprinkler, and connected it to the hose. Then he turned the water on and aimed the sprinkler at my corner of the house. The water rose in a high arc over the porch and above my window, and fell lightly on the tin roof above. Three minutes later I was asleep. And ten hours later, I woke up having slept like the dead.