Six days ago
The rocks were cold but not as slippery as expected. We all took a seat, scattering ourselves on the damp formations of rock that jutted from the shoreline. The water was dark. The sky was dark. Chatter echoed over the water from up-shore and down-shore and down the gravel path that had brought us to this place, where dark waves lapped and crashed below our dangling feet. Trees to the left, vast and endless ocean and sky to our right, distinguishable only due to the darkened and fogged islands that were backlit by the last orange and purple light of the setting sun. We all waited, strewn across the rocks, across the grass-covered hill up-shore, some sitting patiently in rocking boats out on the water. There was a pleasant breeze. Not hot and not cold. Minutes passed while we all continually glanced at the sky, waiting for the first to come. And suddenly there it was. A breathy thud and a whistle as a streamer of light lifted from behind low growing trees and darted serpentine into the sky, followed shortly after by a flash of light high above the horizon and a delayed bang that hit once and then held in the air, leaving only a smoky cloud behind. Many came after, each flashing brightly enough to illuminate individual leaves, individual capping waves, the rough detail in the rocks that in the darkness could only have been felt by hand. Each flash illuminated the harbor, momentarily revealing every boat in its brightness before the darkness returned again, to wait for mere seconds before another interruption. The clouds of smoke blinked blues and reds and whites and purples and only grew larger with each subsequent bang. Suddenly they became louder and brighter and more frequent, constant flashes and bangs. And then nothing. For a moment. And then cheering. The applause roared across the shoreline for a minute or two and then died down to a chatter once again. We all stood and left the rocks in their previous darkness and shuffled back down the gravel path, leaving nothing but the plume of smoke to drift out to sea.
