The silence is
split asunder as the first of hundreds of tiny explosions erupt across the
night sky.
Far off there are
people Oowing, and Ahrring at the spectacle these coloured lights make at the
climax of their brief lives.
Each light weaving
and darting through the sky, like one of a shoal of tropical fish in some
Caribbean lagoon, each darting round one another to reach their goal.
But unlike the
gentle ripple and hushed breezes that accompany that far off lagoon, these
crisscrossing lights are accompanied by the booms and whooshes that echo the explosion
from the very birth of the universe. That awaken a remembrance of that primal
Big Bang throwing forth the building blocks of our world and every other one
circling those pick pricks of light that hang in each night sky.
Is that what were
really seeking to celebrate, the burning sparks of light bringing the building
blocks of life with them, building planets from which the eruption of molten
rock explode and burst forth from the surface and the accompanying hiss and sizzle
of steam as the congealing magma cools and seals.
Then in the
billions of years that follow, the world finally falls silent save for the intermittent
crash of Thunder heralding the patter of rain. But eventually life pours forth,
with its roars and bellows, noise once more enveloping the planet.
Maybe it’s the
terror of that first mighty bellowing sound exploding in the dark, that’s led
us to build new stories and tales forged around the light and its meaning. Legends
of Demons and Plotters, of the triumph of light over dark and the battle of
faith against heresy. New tales to tell and to celebrate, to help us face our
anxieties and apprehensions.
