How does the inside of the trash can feel? Is it honorable? Does it feel like the righteous end to a life of glory and adventure? Or does it feel worse than hell? Does it feel like you’ve been abandoned by everyone who laughed and cheered at you? You used to outshine the stars themselves. Now your only company is the dark recesses of the trash pile. How did this happen? You flew nowhere near the sun but still came crashing down to Earth. Were you shot out of the sky? Or perhaps were you your own folly? Regardless, all that’s left of you now is thoughts. Thoughts and memories of the people who knew you.

 

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They look out over a crowd of hundreds laid out before the stage they stand on. They’re in the middle of their song, and everyone’s loving it. But all of a sudden, strange lights appear at the end of the stadium.  Bright green dots, jumping all over from person to person like spitfire. They’re forming streams of light in the sky that cut through the darkness of the night. Hundreds of green faces are illuminated below, all screaming and cheering at this otherworldly sight. The band can’t help but join in the applause.

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The invaders can’t resist the chance to join them on stage for long. Ten of them gather on stage, and a guitarist picks one up. Nothing but a thin, plastic rod that glows green. So meager they could bend it in their hand. The bandmates are all checking them out too. One of them throws one out into the crowd, and the stadium erupts in roaring applause as the fans climb over themselves to catch it. A smile creeps over their face. This isn’t just a night to remember, this is history.

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“I don’t know what these are, but they’re pretty fucking cool.”

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I was seeing a brand new movie in the theaters, except it wasn’t a movie. It was a recording of a concert by an artist so popular she put the footage in theaters nationwide. There was no story or plot, just her and her dancers singing and dancing. It was a grand spectacle, put together to pay tribute to her godlike popularity. Theaters put up tables where you could make friendship bracelets and set out cardboard cutouts of the singer to take pictures with. Fans were encouraged to bring their own customized outfits that were color coded to their favorite album. Everyone knew when that movie was coming to town. In addition, they had an employee come into our theater at around three quarters of the show to hand out glow sticks for everyone.

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They’re obscure. Something you can forget about for years on end. And yet everyone has at least one detailed memory of them. Making a necklace with four or five sticks. Watching a friend drink the juice inside. Finding seven littered on the ground. Mine was from childhood, when I bent and snapped my glow sticks so much they bled neon all over the car seats. I repeated history in that theater as orange dots splattered everywhere.

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This encounter left me oddly enamored by the glow sticks. I couldn’t pinpoint why. Perhaps I was a moth attracted to a bright light in the darkness. Maybe I was enthralled by an object that could bleed like humans do. It wasn’t long though, until I discovered why I had been so attracted to the topic of glow sticks: they are perhaps one of the most maniacal things that humanity has ever created.

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Their history, both personal and empirical, is that of unbounded life and enthusiasm. The chemist that discovered them, Edwin Chandross, cracked the formula for glow sticks in just his first day of experiments. Chandross was either the luckiest scientist on Earth, or the glow sticks were itching to be created.

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In 1971, A young man whose dad assembled them at a factory had box after box of overflow in their garage. It just so happened that the Grateful Dead was playing nearby. Why not bring something this fun to a concert? He gathered some friends, filled up backpacks full of glow sticks, and headed out to make music history. The glow sticks didn’t just want to be born. They wanted to explode onto the scene. And thus the aliens descended…

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Such extravagance is fitting for the glow stick, as they carry one of the most extreme social rituals imaginable. A trial they must endure to light up the night. They don't activate with electricity, nor with fire, nor heat. They only ever light up in the presence of pain. Their pain. While lamps and light bulbs only need to be plugged or screwed in, each and every glow stick must have its spine snapped in half in order to give off light. No, it can’t be just one clean snap. Every vertebrae of its spinal column needs to be shattered in order to ensure that the fluid trapped inside its thin, glass bones escapes and reacts with the chemical it calls blood. Many don’t realize that pain is so often an integral part of the glowstick.

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There have been a few, however, who have been unfortunate enough to incur said pain.  There was once a man who wanted to defy society. He chose to start by protesting against the label on a box of glowsticks, the part that read, “DO NOT DRINK OR INGEST”.  He was furious that anyone had tried to tell him what to do, let alone this box. So, he did the only rational thing and proceeded to drink six of them before bed. It was his first stand against society, but what he failed to realize was that he no longer had to worry about society, because at that moment he had incurred the wrath of a much more dangerous foe.

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By the end of the night, he had to be taken to the hospital, as the pain in his stomach became purely unbearable. Of course, he wasn’t in any actual danger. Glow sticks aren’t built to kill their patrons. No, even despite the considerable alarm the man gave them, the doctors confirmed that he was in no harm aside from stomach pain. The glow sticks just wanted him to feel like he was dying; a retribution for the blood he spilled without purpose and without sense.

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Did you know that there’s actually a way to make glow sticks shine twice as bright? I’ve seen it myself. It’s heat. They shine like a beacon when heated up. Look no further than the microwave. I’ve seen the accounts of what happens when you put a glow stick inside; of how brightly they glow. It’s so shiny that it makes their initial light seem timid by comparison. A wave of light pours out of the window. For a brief moment, I can imagine the shock and awe of the spectators at that Grateful Dead concert, watching as aliens arrive on Earth.

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And then something unexpected happens. The glow stick explodes. Except it doesn’t explode. To explode implies that it bursts in five different places. That there are bits of blood and viscera covering every square inch of the crime scene. That the body has theoretically become the bodies. Glow sticks don’t explode like that. Instead, a small stream pokes through the side, spraying everything nearby. The geyser can be a bit violent, especially if it occurs right within your face, but it is hardly extravagant. And afterwards, the glow stick still stands! Right side up with half its fluid no less! Some could call that feat impressive, but then what comes after? All that’s left is a limp shell at risk of toppling over and spilling the last of its glow everywhere. There’s no use for it and no entertainment to be derived. All that’s left is to throw it out.

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There’s no need for them to feel ashamed of the outcome though. It would’ve been the same thing even if they hadn’t become a microwaved hot dog. Or the surprise guest at a concert. Or a novelty at a movie theater. Or the snack of a depraved man. No matter how hard you try, the road only goes one way. There’s nothing to worry about though. You won’t be alone for long. This is a planet of extravagance, and you’ll have plenty of friends arriving soon where you are. It may even be us one day. Nothing would be too surprising.