Fireworks in the Shire

by Meylin Muniz (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find USA

I was thrown (ok, flown) from one edge of the east coast to the other. Lines on maps tell me that Miami, Florida and Rindge, New Hampshire are all roped into the same red-white-blue America, but it didn’t feel fair to call this tract of land the same country. I couldn’t begin to explain this New-Hampshire-land set in New-England-world (the word New to prove to me again its novelty)? Land of rocks- no, boulders- as great as houses, shockingly then set onto the backs of mountains. Land of two-month-summers and 1-street-towns. I became convinced that “New Hamp” was a ruse, and I had truly arrived at Tolkien’s shire. I played the part and contented myself as a farm hand that summer. The people were humble, pleasant, and patient folks. When they drove, they used turn signals. When they pronounced Gloucester, they said Gloster. But New England proved me wrong on the 4th of July. After a long day of weeding parsley in the fields, my fellow farm hands amazed me with the decision that they would climb nearby Mount Watatic. Was I in? Of course. Never mind that I was a skinny flatlander who could barely pick up a bag of chicken manure. I was in the Shire and here to try new things. Red-white-blue, but even the mountain air entered my lungs differently. I fumbled over rocks and picked my way up the rugged Earth as the other farm hands merrily glided ahead. Land of stones, not soil. I delighted myself, then exhausted myself, in zig-zagging over their surfaces. At the balding summit another pile of rocks lay this time with an American flag perched at the top. This is your same palette, your people, your home it mocked me. Below us, sparks of light flew out over various towns- the patriotic festivities of New England in full swing. The mountains rolled interminably ahead as dark blues petered into lighter blues faded into sky. I wondered why anyone ever bothered naming a mountain. The task seemed as futile as naming a wave in an ocean. Sitting alongside me, the other farm hands peered into the expanse struggling to recognize the towns they had known their whole lives as the sun made its final wink under the land. I blinked away the Shire and for a moment the world was as it was- wholly interwoven and hitched to every home I knew or never knew. There was no “here” nor “there” but only the fanciful sensation of it- of otherness. “I think that’s… Worcester” said Kayla pointing one finger into a certain hotspot of fireworks. The way she said it was Wuster. The other farm hands wrinkled their brows and proposed alternate theories. We wrestled with the cobbled blues and greens. We were foreigners alike above it. “Yea I think I see…” I arbitrarily pointed into the distance, a smile tugging at my lips. “Miami just a little beyond there.” We chuckled at the thought of my eyes stretching so far south. Maps of lines and edges disappeared into a swamp of endless center. Even America disappeared. I hugged knees to chest as cool winds ruffled through the trees and across our exposed section of rock. I had never known the desire of a sweater on the 4th of July before then. As we made our way down the mountain, headlamps clamped onto our foreheads, the echoed booms of the fireworks followed our paces. Beyond that were only the sounds of our own breathing, shoes scuffling against rock, and occasional check-ins (“Is everyone alright?”). It was in stark contrast to the light-hearted babbling on the way up. I could feel myself swallowed whole by the blackening belly of the forest, completely at its mercy. This time, I did not imagine myself a hobbit but a nameless convict of some unknown wood- fleeing the thudding pulses of gun shots as the enemy closed in on me. If travel was simple fantasy, I’d indulge it completely.