A night-going insect has an urgent curiosity to fly to a blazing fire. After all, it’s the absence of the sun that makes the fire so warm. The fire combats the night with alluring warmth. The insect buzzes closer, dissatisfied with the distance separating it from the glow. The hypnotizing pillars of plasma swell upward to taste the tips of the insect’s wings. Despite the overwhelming heat, the little bug flies toward the center, reaching to grasp the light for itself. The cool darkness of midnight glazed over her room. The light of a touch-screen glowed on top of crumpled blankets. The girl laid stomach-down on her bed, elbows crushing indents into the mattress, skinny forearms supporting the weight of the phone in her hands. Wide mesmerized eyes followed the endless scroll of pixels that cascaded from the tips of her fingers. This is beauty. It left a sickly sweet taste in her mouth, like candy laced with invisible poison. She swiped through the filters to make herself look beautiful. When the crooks of her elbows started to ache, she rolled onto her back, looking up at the light of likes. Her finger combed over the image she so carefully cultivated. Underneath the picture, her picture, the numbers of hearts were multiplying. A soft smile grew from her lips. The fire was quite warm compared to the cold of the night. It was about time that she should sleep, but an imaginary force tied her to the glow of her phone. The numbers were growing… yet somehow, in some way, jealousy drowned out all other senses. Why couldn’t she look like the girl on the screen? Flawless features that could be managed with a tap, a swipe, a pinch of the fingers. She cut off the light and attempted to sleep. But thoughts streamed endlessly through her head, great icy rivers flowed underneath her eyelids. The frigid streams of hate, thick as winter mud trickled down her throat. She wanted to reach for the center of the lingering flames, to be warm once again. At last, the bitter tasting icicles melted out of her mind. Eventually, unconsciousness deadened her need to reach out for the light. Dim lights blinked in the room, only enhancing the eerie blue glow of her phone. Her thumbs tapped at the miniscule keyboard continuously: swiping through her social media, liking and sharing and replying and texting... She could feel the invisible faces surrounding her, gathering round. Criticism after criticism, compliment after compliment, they all blended together in a never ending scroll, scroll, scroll. The attention blanketed her in the warmth of a thousand glowing hearts. Hearts piled onto each other and smoldered like coals. She shifted her eyes toward the mirror. Her reflection looked back, and it was so lost, so confused, so disgusted. But most of all, she didn’t look beautiful. This was a lie. A lie that glowed artificially in her hands. The whirlwind of flames started to loom above her, the rolling hills of fire, washing her in choking heat, transforming into giant looming mountain that grew in her agony. Yet she shivered as she brought her phone up to her face once more. The number of hearts kept growing and growing. Stuck in a continuous cycle. A never. Ending. Cycle. Pinching and contorting and twisting until she was too distorted to recognize. The cage of hellish fire held her tight within its grasp. She couldn’t stop now, the core was right in front of her face, and the pounding hearts urged her toward it. The intoxicating inferno roared endlessly as it slowly carved unnoticeable scars into her mind. But even so, she was still addicted to the heat. In the midst of the growling labyrinth, the burnt insect continued to crawl, legs trembling against waves of heat, body on the verge of crumpling to black ashes. But that was the sacrifice she would make, for in her eyes, all she saw was brilliant purity. On the other side of the carpet lay the phone. Screen darkened, cracked, hated. Every touch of the screen felt like hot iron on her fingertips. Back to the ground and face to the sky, she was splayed on top of a picnic blanket. There she lay, looking at the sun which cast the bright golden rays of light onto her face. Her phone was tossed onto the grass. The cracked screen sputtered with unseeable sparks. She closed her eyes. It was a tiny step. So minuscule it didn’t even seem like anything changed at all. But maybe the growing hearts were not the growth she was looking for the whole time. Perhaps this was. For once, a tiny flame was lit inside her, heating her from the inside out. A pile of charred wood sizzled. Perhaps miracles did exist, for an insect crawled out, burnt but not broken. Tomorrow there could be another fire, and another battle, and another escape. But today, the firefly has emerged intact. The insect passed the glowing embers of the past and flew toward the moon.
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