Out With Lanterns

by Jeff Baker

The woods were so dark they could barely see the stars above them through the trees.

They heard the hoot of an owl and then there was a funny trilling in the air.

“That’s a Screech Owl,” Granddad said.

“Screech Owl?” Bill said.

“Yeah,” Granddad said. “Only they don’t screech. Don’t ask why they call them that.”

The three of them had been out chasing fireflies at dusk.

“Just don’t catch them,” Granddad had said. “That’s cruel.”

They walked on through the dark.

“We’re lost!” Martin said. He was eight, his brother Bill was nine.

“We’re not lost,” Granddad said.

“You know where we are?” Bill asked.

“Pretty much,” Granddad said. “Even if I didn’t, we could use the stars to find out which was is which. But we’ve got something better. Look!”

Granddad pointed in the dimness. They saw it through the trees, a bright, firm glimmer of light.

“Hooray!” Martin yelled.

“Don’t run!” Granddad said. “We don’t want to really get lost!”

The followed the light. Soon they could see Grandma and Grandpa’s house on the edge of town with its screened in back porch with the lantern hanging from the ceiling. It was closer than the kids thought.

And then Bill woke up.

As always he would take a moment to remember that those days had been almost forty years ago. He’d remember what Grandma’s cookies tasted like (even though they were store bought) and he’d remember that the old lantern (which he had rewired) was now sitting on a table on his apartment balcony.

He’d remember that the little grove of trees had seemed like a big forest to the kids at their age. And they couldn’t get lost as there was a fence all around that part of the property. Something they forgot at age eight and nine.

And he would sit up in bed and smile.

—end—

NOTE: Title is from Emily Dickinson. —-jeff