Fireworks

The children in my neighborhood have been setting off fireworks every night now since the fourth. The same simple poppers. Not to send out any kind of message--for what could they actually have to say?--but simply for the sake of watching something explode. And yet this too is a message of sorts. These children, shut in because of the virus, have grown frustrated with the slow pace of the world, and therefore want to see and feel the rush of some sort of action. They get this rush vicariously through the explosion of the fireworks. But what happens when these same children are presented with a book--Moby Dick, say--and are asked to read it and study it? Their eyes will skip about the page, searching for explosions, but won't be able to find any. Not only won't they be able to comprehend the words in the book, they won't be able to look at the words at all. They don't want to study, these children. They want to make things explode. Ah, but therein lies the irony. For in order to truly make the kinds of explosions that would overshadow those of the fireworks, they must study. Or else, become angry and blow up at the world themselves.