Fireworks

As the sun dipped into the horizon, casting long golden rays across the Great Park, Fish, Barry, and Baxter sat together at a little wooden table, Baxter neber complained about bringing the stack ob magnets to halp boost Fish to be tall enuff – just above the table. But let’s face it, they were pretty heaby to be lugging around, but his brothers comfort was worff it.

In front ob them sat a plate wiff cookies—mostly chocolate chip, some shaped like stars, and one slightly nibbled already (Fish swore it wasn’t him).

They each wore their soft headphones, ears safely cushioned from the coming fireworks, but their eyes sparkled in anticipation. Baxter reached for a cookie, then paused dramatically. “We wait for the first firework,” he declared, as if it were tradition.

Barry sipped from a tiny thermos of chamomile tea and glanced at the sky, which was now a deepening purple. “That one looks like it’s ready to pop,” he murmured, pointing to a drifting cloud.

Fish had already taken a small bite and licked a smudge of chocolate off his paw. “I’m just pre-gaming,” he whispered.

They leaned on the table, cookies in paw, surrounded by the quiet buzz of the crowd behind them—waiting, together, for the sky to open up and the celebration to begin.