Fireworks

To National Stadium, 29 km. While some people are selling their unwanted tickets to the National Day parade, multitudes are gathered around the stadium, on the roadside, on the pedestrian bridge, on the grass. Dressed in red and white (or at least in red), they're there for the duration of the parade though it can't be seen from the outside - except for the fireworks. Together with N and J, we smell the gunpowder, feel the explosions, hear the boom and see the fireworks bloom in the night sky. I pick up some foil that flitters down. That piece of aluminium was extracted from the soil, processed and travelled thousands of miles. In that fleeting moment of glory, it does its job as part of the fireworks, then falls to the ground, to be trampled and swept away.