“Em! Come and light your sparkler, quickly!” Kay’s voices was full of the brisk, merry tones Luke had come to associate with intoxication. Everyone’s voice seemed to have that ring to it tonight and he found himself laughing along, watching Kay trying to get the last four sparklers lit with a stiff ocean breeze trying its best blow the flames away. “Finally! Tee, Jay, Aye. Here’s one for each of you.”
“Yay?” Tee took the glittering stick and gave it a few half-hearted whisks through the air, leaving trails of light floating across Luke’s eyes. “So, we just hold it until it goes out then? Cool, I guess.”
“Look how pretty it is,” Kay sounded a bit disappointed that the sparkler-bearers weren’t showing her enthusiasm for the light display. Watching Em, Tee, Jay and Aye through his camera’s lens, Luke found himself transfixed and mentally started counting how many drinks he had consumed. Sparklers just should not be so … captivating. Not at his age.
“Oh my god! I just thought of the best idea!” Luke lowered his camera and noticed that nobody had heard him. He raised his voice to be heard over yet another upbeat rendition of Auld Lang Syne. “Oi! You guys! Listen. Use your sparklers to write out the numbers 2012, it’ll make an awesome photo.”
Four out-of-tune voices silenced mid-song to agree with him that writing out 2012 with sparkler-fire would be amazing. Luke started adjusting camera settings, wondering when the buttons on the interface had become so small. “Right, got it,” looking through the viewfinder, Luke started waving his arms in an attempt to get everybody into shot. “Okay, Em! You do the first two, Aye, you’re the zero, Tee, you’re on one and Jay, you need to do two too. Ready? Go!”
Four sparklers held in four hands started flailing about in the night. Luke pressed the shutter button and waited the two seconds he had set the picture to expose. Bursting out laughing at the image on the LCD, Luke called out “Em! What the hell? You did a five and Jay, you’re doing an eight somehow. Em, I think you need to reverse whatever you were doing and Jay, you need to do what Em does. Okay?”
“Quick, quick! The sparklers don’t have much time left,” Luke gave a start as he noticed Kay standing beside him, up on her toes and bobbing excitedly, she wore a grin of childish delight.
“Okay, you know what to do now?” without waiting for a response, Luke raised the camera again. “Ready? Go!”
The wild waving began again and Luke pressed the shutter button and waited. As soon as the picture finished exposing, Kay grabbed the camera from his hands, staring intently at the screen. When it finally lit up with the image, she burst out laughing and cried out “Oh no! Their sparklers have all gone out, we won’t get another chance now.”
“Give me that,” Luke grabbed the camera back off Kay and looked at the screen. In between hysterical fits of laughter, he wheezed “Well. In six years time we will have it!”
