Chasing Fireflies

by Charles Martin

That’s life. You take the bad with the good. Rise up through it. Live in the midst of it. It’s the bad that lets you know how good the good really is. Don’t let the bad leave you thinking like there ain’t no good. There is, and lots of it, too.”

“See what I mean? Thorns don’t stop you from sniffing. Or putting them in a vase on the kitchen table. You work around them.” He stuck a finger in the air. “Why? ’Cause the rose is worth it.” He looked at me. “Think what you’d miss.”

But the thing is this . . . every day, no matter what I’d painted the day before, I got a new canvas, washed white. ’Cause each night the tide rolled in, scrubbed it clean, and receded, taking the stains with it. And in my dreams . . . I just stood on the beach and watched all that stuff wash out to sea.”