“Lustful Disturbances” by Leonilde Marques
This is where fireflies found their voice in violent arcadia trying to fit in with the freaks and ghouls. In a toilet paper frenzy, like a picture from the 80s, ornamenting the cave walls and gardens of destructed family temples. The fireflies came together in their shiny cheap vinyl dresses and their glittered faces. They danced the night away in amphetamine hype, mixing in sweat with the drooling freaks and ghouls that licked at the fresh skin of an early 18s crowed, unblemished, untouched by facelifts and silicone. It was there, amidst the throbbing disturbing thunder of the so called Satan music performed by skinny drug abused bodies and heavy caked on make-up male faces, they lost whatever naïve child spark was left on them.
Father Tim came by the lake the following day trying to preach salvation to the dazed insects crowding the swamp side of the congregation. A useless little display, banging on like fire trying to burn water, for the sleepy heads of the humming insects dressed in their Sunday best. Father Tim unwilling to give up, released the crazy old frog named Religion, powered by the ignorance of those from suburbia perfect cut grass driveways, and let it roam blind to swallow up the little pretty fireflies. “May it crush all the freaks and ghouls in its way” – he shouted as if possessed by a different kind of force. A wave of rage and frustration blinded him too because he hadn’t been the one licking at the salty skin yet to be damaged by age.
The fire starters and the stone throwers crawled out of their holes that evening hoping for a good old day’s lynching. Like vermin surrounding freshly killed carcass they gathered around the lustful frustrated father Tim. Together in noisy secret they planned puritan crimes for the survival of yet another crazy old frog named Morals. However fireflies are known to wonder alone sometimes appearing at the most unexpected of places. Like so, a scared little insect with buttoned up shirt and crossed up legs like good little girls should, watched in silent the blood thirst hounds. Taking advantage of her puritan nauseating look the firefly made her way out of madness unnoticed, and ran towards her kin that were already mixed in another sort of madness with the freaks and ghouls.
The glitter filled fireflies listened to the tales of twisted salvation their sister told them. Dazed but not dumb the insects panicked at this insight into their future. They spoke to each other in unshed voices and observed possibility road. After tasting from the chemical freedom the fireflies didn’t want back in suburbia, nor they wanted a future with the freaks and ghouls, and they sure weren’t after the recently saved purity badge. Like unexpected lightning the dazedness was gone. They wiped the glitter from their faces and burned out the cheap vinyl dresses. In leather and jeans, and with suitcases packed with manipulation, they made their way towards the highway… “There’s more to life than this,” whispered a seductive frog named The Land of Dreams as he swallowed them whole.
The persecutors arrived ridding on Morals and Religion to find crying parents who had recently lost their children to the highway. Unsatisfied still they rode on to the caves where the freaks and ghouls were known to gather, but these too were empty except for the trace of broken glass, and a whole load of toilet paper like century old spider webs. Little birds that had been minding someone else’s business as usual went on to tell gossip filled tales of forbidden perversion to scare the little untouched skin of yet to be corroded fireflies that were too young at the time. Father Tim took a sit back defeated as he watched from his window his congregation walk by. “Next time it will be different,” he thought to himself lost in masturbation bliss as innocent new fireflies played unaware outside.
Words by Leonilde Marques, Photo by Shane Connolly