it is nearly midnight, i’m wearing countless layers of clothing plus a coat over it all, and this is my first experience with exploding fire up close. sissy is on the fourth floor sleeping like the tired baby she is and i’m slightly worried all this noise is going to awake her and she’ll cry because i’m not next to her, but down here. i am holding tightly the nearest person to me as i am cold but also i wasn’t sure how loud all of this was going to be. it’s dark so no one knows who everyone is, and faces don’t matter. suddenly, we all jump because grandpapa didn’t warn us when he would light up the fire but then it was just all sorts of wonderful blindness after that. it finishes really quickly, you know. there is supposedly two thousand something fireworks in a pack but that is barely a minute of exploding time. we climb back up with deaf ears and colour in our eyes.