The light we carry: Remembering fireflies through stories

I remember the caimito tree adjacent to my grandmother's house in Dapdap Norte. Its roots spilled like a tangled secret into the earth.

- MARK ALDEN ARCENAL

At dusk, the air around it shimmered with fireflies, as if someone had shaken a jar of stars and set them free. My cousin and I would gather barefoot on the Bermuda grass, breathing in the scent of wet soil and crushed leaves, faces turned upward to the small lights floating among the branches and the night sky.

In hushed tones, Lola Bebe would tell us: "Puyananan na sa mga engkanto (That tree is the home of engkantos)," or the supernatural beings older than memory itself. She would warn, "Ayaw tudloa ang kahoy (Don't point at the tree)," a belief that says if we point at something forbidden, our fingers could be cut off unless we bite them afterward. We nodded solemnly, half-afraid, half-thrilled, because childhood leaves space for both fear and wonder.

On those warm nights, the world felt enchanted, and fireflies seemed to hold it together: glowing threads connecting the living and the unseen, the ordinary and the magical. Their glow was our first lesson in wonder that even in darkness, the world was alive with hidden stories.