Fire Flies

It was a moment of unreality to find myself on a Friday evening when I should be teaching on the banks of Seki river, on a tiny path balanced between river and rice paddy, chasing fire flies with two students. It was there idea to take a field trip as I had never seen fire flies before. Since they only live for two or three weeks there was no time to loose. Half way through the lesson we were speeding through town on our way to the first stop. Here the river was flanked by pathways and bridges for the purpose of enjoying the cherry blossom in spring and I guess the fireflies in June. The light was brighter and more yellowy-green than the orange I'd been expecting. We walked up and down the river stopping when we found the pulsing lights. They gave me the same thrill as unexpected fairy lights seen from a distance at Christmas time. There's something magical about their glow, the tiny window of time in which to see them. Of course there used to be many more before there were so many people, before the river started being cleaned in order to vie for the status of cleanest river in Japan. 
So we zoomed off to a quieter part of town. The huge office buildings of JAL on one side and then the black expanse of flat rice fields housing chorusing frogs and a tiny piece of river trying to slide on through unnoticed. We didn't manage to catch one but as we returned to the car we found one lying on the road and picked it up on a leaf. It was small, brown and moth like but for the tiny tail of solid neon. Not a fairy at all, just a strange insect crossing over that same paradoxical line that exisits everywhere in Japan between the neon modernity and the restrained traditional.