LED projecting

Hotel rooms are inherently creepy but because this hotel was on a beautiful Caribbean island I was a lot more relaxed and less apprehensive than usual. Having said that I found myself jolted awake on the wrong side of 1 a.m. and unable to get back to sleep. When your enormous windows face east with nothing between you and the rising sun except the ocean you make sure that the heavy blinds are drawn tight so, to complete your mental picture, the room was dark. So dark that it took me a few second to realize that there wasn’t much difference between when my eyes were open and when they were shut. A little of the latter and heaping helping of the former. Even still it took me a little while to see the flashes.

Tiny irregular flickers of light on the far wall over the door. At first I thought they were just night lights to tell me the smoke detector was working or guide me out of the room in case of fire but they kept flashing in little uneven almost random pulses. After staring at them for awhile I ruled out anything made by man and jumped to the only other conclusion. They must be fireflies.

Now I’m not sure if fireflies even live in the tropics or how they would get into my room but there they were. 2 of them clinging to my wall and flashing away. I presumed they were doing some sort of courtship ritual, perhaps the male signaling that he was in the mood and asking if the female could be persuaded into a little Coleoptera copulation.

Laying there thinking about attraction got me to wondering if that’s why they make all false teeth perfect. When my teeth finally fall out or I’m forced to have them extracted due to rampant gum disease I think I’d like a variety of denture options based on how I feel in the morning. Who among us feels like they’ll never wake up in a mood that can only be captured with crooked teeth? I know I’ll want to reach for the stained choppers now and again let alone the set with a tooth or 2 missing for a quick trip to the bikers bar.

And yes I know I’m supposed to say I was lying there as opposed to laying there but the truth is at that moment I was laying there.

My eyesight isn’t the best so I couldn’t quite make out how my firefly pal was doing. It wasn’t for quite some time that I saw the 3rd light flickering. Another male perhaps? Or a female stepping in to let the male know that she was game for a little Lampyridae on Lampyridae action. Either way this newcomer was causing some friction because the use of bioluminescence was getting more and more conspicuous.

You want conspicuous? How about a little gold once in awhile to spice up the grill? I’m not talking about my every-day, walk-around-with, visit-the-grandkids teeth but for special events I’d like to know I have ’em waiting in a glass of water by the bed at home.

It was late and my eyes were getting a bit weary but I could swear I saw I saw 2 of the 3 lightning bugs pair up and start doing whatever it is they do when the moment is right. Their flashes seemed to be coming from right on top of each other. I wondered what the 3rd wheel in this luciferase acting on the luciferin, in the presence of magnesium ions, Adenosine-5′-triphosphate and oxygen to produce light love story would do when he or she realized he or she was being written out.

And what about a set with giant buck teeth?! Tell me that a 90 year old guy with giant buck teeth isn’t the guy getting all the ass in the nursing home! You’re damned right he is.

This is the interesting part. The third party did nothing. He or she just stood there flashing every now and again as if nothing was going on. I figured he’d or she’d fly off in search of another partner but instead he or she stayed right there and watched the whole nasty thing. What could have been going through his or her Pyractomena voyeur head? I sat in the darkness and listen intently for the sound of a breaking insect heart but none was forthcoming. So many lessons to be learned from fireflies.

The weird thing was that in the morning I looked above the door and saw 2 tiny lights that were there to guide me out in case of a fire or other emergency.

Weird.