More from "Ghetto"

I am feeling sad today. Quite sad in fact. It made me re-read this story. It's a bit sad as well...

I stared at her and she at me. Mary held my eyes for an instant longer than allowed by propriety. I saw in her eyes that universal fear I'd felt a short time before. It passed in an instant, replaced by a fragile smile. She left me on the bed staring out at the horizon. Downstairs I heard a tide of voices rise in laughter and then ebb in silence. The lights of Toronto flickered at the edge of the lake. I could hear Jack saying our good-byes.

I slept briefly then, dreamless and without motion. But the pull of something larger than myself, a persistent image, drew me out of unconsciousness. I woke and remembered a night Laurie and I had spent in the cherry orchards of the reservation. It was the night Tony had informed me there was a new girl. A girl whose parents accepted him.

Laurie and I each climbed a cherry tree on the ground that had been sacred to her ancestors. The fresh cherries stained our fingertips and tongues red. There was no moon but still there was no real darkness. All around us, in the forest of pine, maple and birch, fireflies blinked. I closed my eyes and could see the spirits of ancestors unfurling like a hundred white sails. The earth and sky expanded to infinity. We listened to crickets, frogs, and an owl crying out. The fireflies lit the darkness with their glitter. Speechless, we watched as each fulfilled its destiny- to flash and burn away.