Dreams of a firefly

A young boy named timmy is dieing of a teminal illness, realised to late his farther tells of tale of timmy the little firefly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I glanced absently mindly at the picture that rest's next to Timmy's bed. The picture of us all me, timmy and his older sister myra, at last guy fawkes night . His stubby little hands clutching my fingers tightly as he jumps up and down in excitment watching the embers dance freely over the logs. This was the first day he developed his obession with fire flies, from then on chasing them around the garden, taking photographs and logging them in his little book of scribbles. He'd turned to me that night his little blue eyes shaking slightly and just stared up at me his lip quivering  with the cold.

"Daddy?" he questioned jostling on the sleeve of my leather jacket

"Daddy i want to be a firefly"

Id laughed at the time , and patted his head , gave him a little grin and turned back to the flames. Myra gave him a rather quizzical look but thought nothing of it but childish dreams. After all he was looking at embers dance over flaming logs not fireflies and we all doubted he even knew what fireflies actually where. But we were of course mistaken as we where soon to find out.

Timmy stirred in his sleep, his brow furrowing. I gently reached out to stroke his golden hair, letting it fall gently  over my fingers. He'll wake up soon i thought to myself as the first few rays of dawn break through the curtains, i stood up giving him one last smile and made my way over to the curtains and drew them letting the cool early morning air soak into the room. Its part of my morning ritual to open the windows before the kids are awake, to have breakfast ready on the table and the tv pre-set to my daughter's choosing. I always went to timmy last, he was the youngest after all and i liked to watch him sleeping peacefully his playful little smile dancing across his face.

Downstairs the house was silent, my footsteps making soft padding noises on the lino in the kitchen. The birds twittering happily in the garden. I liked the early morning before the hustle and bustle of school time, the petty squabblings of the children , it was nice to feel the peace of the house.

Coco pops for timmy, the milk slightly warmed just like he liked and a fruit salad for myra, who had become rather worryingly caloire concious as of late. I laid them out on the kitchen table , glancing at the clock quickly to make sure i had enough time before i heard the bounding of footsteps and the requests began. None at all i laughed to myself as i heard the first little thump of a little boy jumping outta his bed, and then the sound of annoyed little girl as her younger brother ran into her room and jumped on her bed.

"Breakfast is on the table guys, get ready for skl and get down here"

This was always the easiest part of the morning , problems never really did arrise until the car journey , when people remeber things that were meant to be signed, that they'd left on the front room table or in teh bags before. Id spend many mornings making about 15 differnt trips after id dropped them of at there two seperate skl's as phone calls kept coming requesting homework , forms , trip money , but eventually it would all settle down and both children would be happily enjoying there learning and i my cuppa on the sofa infront of wife swap.

Noone would of even suspected it , or saw it coming that such a healthy , happy boy would be lieing in a hospital bed clinging so gently life. His eyes lacking of any colour and his skin almost bleached pale. That our little fire fly would soon flicker out amongst flames.