By odd accident, Canada's spring holiday is named after Queen Victoria (yesterday was Victoria Day), and it is associated with fireworks. Went down to the lakeshore in the cold with a couple of neighbours' children (the best way to see fireworks) and watched the night sky sprinkled with bits of exploding light. On these occasions, my perverse mind goes in many directions -- first to the scene in "To Catch A Thief" with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, where the fireworks going off are (surprise, surprise) substitutes for sex. This is an old and not exactly subtle connection -- colourful explosions in the dark.

Second, fireworks are so obviously beautiful -- as Romeo says of Juliet, she shines like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear -- colourful brightness in unexpected patterns against pitch blackness. It must go straight to some deep part of the brain.

But another part of my mind thinks that one of the reasons why people are drawn fireworks is that life is like slow fireworks -- that we come into existence surprisingly out of a black background, shimmer and grow, and then disappear to be replaced by another spray of atomies. It is curious to look at people between bursts of patterned fire -- quiet, anticipatory, talking to each other about the last explosion, and then looking up, waiting, in expectation. If there is a waiting room for returning to earth for a next lifetime, I am sure that the look on the faces of the expectant returnees is like this.