Song of the Butterflies

The Butterfly House is a garden of butterflies. It's a place of beauty, where wishes are made. There's a piano in the center of the house, and it is there the Song is heard.

Soft whooshes of air. The sweet scent of nectar. Little feet, tickling my face.

Flutter, flutter, flutter, butterflies. Fly, fly, fly, little butterfly. Sing, sing, sing with the butterflies.

The children’s rhyme is echoing through my ears when I open my eyes. I've left everyone else in the park to come here to see something that I haven't seen in years. I need to be alone. I don't deserve to be with my classmates and friends when I'm like this.

There are millions and millions and millions of butterflies everywhere; on my skin, in my hair, fluttering around me. I see flashes of blue and yellow and green and orange and black and every other color imaginable. I’d like to just stand here, these butterflies around me like I’m a flower, sweet and pure and untouched by sin.

But I can’t do that. Because I’m not a flower; I’m not sweet; I’m not pure; and I’m certainly not untouched by sin.

I don’t know why I did it. I don’t know why I left him after giving myself to him. He was so kind, for f**k’s sake. I can’t say I don’t regret it, but the pit of guilt within me is getting deeper and deeper with every moment that passes. Three years and all I give him is a s****y goodbye with no explanation.

That’s why I’m here, in the Butterfly House, away from everyone. It’s like a garden, but of nothing but butterflies and flowers. I used to come here with my mom, when we were both a little more innocent. She would play the old piano in the center of the House, and I would dance with the butterflies. Maybe I can find forgiveness here, maybe I can find her here again.

But I know she’s gone now; I’m here alone, hoping to absolve some of this guilt, wash myself of some of this sin.

I gently shake off the butterflies and walk into the heart of the Butterfly House. I feel like a little bit of the pain is gone, taken prisoner by the little fairies that swirl around me. But it’s not enough to stop the crushing feeling of shame.

I haven’t been here since mom left us. Butterfly House is just as vast as I remember �" a gigantic onion-shaped glass dome. The place is awash in sunlight, and the forest of flowers is just as overgrown as before. Everything that isn’t glass or flowers or a butterfly is painted white, and the light reflecting from the paint is more than just dazzling. God knows why, but the piano’s the only thing not covered in butterflies.

I sit at the piano, and no butterflies come and rest on my shoulders. I look around. Some of the butterflies are facing me, fluttering about like they expect greatness. Their wings shine, and for a moment, I’m overwhelmed by a memory of mom and me.

It’s our last time in the Butterfly House together, and it’s the last time I ever see her smile. She’s sitting where I sit now, hands delicately touching the ivory and ebony keys of the piano. She is playing a sonata, an enchantment of music that we had written together. I’m dancing beside her, a little butterfly myself. But then she suddenly stops, right before the music crescendos. She lifts out her right hand, and a single butterfly, jet black, lands on her outstretched finger. I stop to watch, head tilted in curiosity.

“Nessa,” she whispers, smiling. “Make a wish.”

She looks so blissful, so happy. “For the both of us,” she adds.

I really want to wish. But there is nothing I want, everything I need is right in my eyes.

But mom doesn’t know that. My eyes are closed in thought and she thinks I’ve made my wish. She lets the butterfly go, and it flies higher and higher, towards the glass dome, towards the sky.

The smile on her face stops me from telling her that I haven’t wished. I can’t tell her, I can’t break her heart, even though she will break mine.

Tears are running down my face. Mom would know how to fix my heart and ease the guilt; she’d know what to do; she’d understand me. D****t, where is she when I need her the most? Why’d she have to leave? I slam my fist on the keys of the piano, and there is a mass flurry of movement around me.

There was never innocence between mom and me. I thought we were innocent because I knew no better. I was innocent and naïve, and now I’m just a fool. A fool who gave up the only other love she’d known.

But my hand is still on the piano keys. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but I begin to run that hand up and down the piano. I wipe my face with the other hand and put them both on middle C. There’s something deep in me �" deeper than the pit of guilt �" that is beginning to rise through my veins.

I begin to play.

It’s our enchanted sonata, and the butterflies begin to dance around me. I’m playing softly and delicately at first, but then I start playing louder and faster, pouring out all the tumultuous emotions to the keys. I’m nearing the crescendo. All at once, the something that was rising from deep within bursts through, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. I stop, but the butterflies don’t stop dancing. Their fluttering is a taunt. Are you going to finish? Are you going sing with us?

I close my eyes, breathe, and keep playing. The music thunders though the glass dome, and I can feel the little currents of air the butterflies’ dance is making. This time, there are no tears when I open my eyes, only light. I keep playing, right through to the end. I am swept away by my music and I dump the guilt and the shame and the sin and the regret behind.

There’s nothing else but the music and the butterflies and myself. Nothing but the sunlight and the flowers and the sweet scent of nectar. I am liberated, I am a butterfly lost in the song.

When I finish the sonata, there is nothing but calm within me. I’ve forgotten what I did because I’m a fool and all fools err and then we all learn and ask to be forgiven. I’ve forgiven mom for leaving. A little butterfly told me she was just swept away by life, like I was taken by guilt.

A jet black butterfly lands on the piano as I muse. It looks at me expectantly, and I smile.

“I hope you enjoyed the song,” I say. It twitches its wings, maybe in amusement. Flutter, flutter, flutter…

It’s exactly like the one that landed on mom’s hand that day, and I still don’t have a wish to make. Fly, fly, fly…

So I blow two kisses to it, and ask it to give one to mom, where ever she might be drifting, and the other to him, wherever he might be waiting. And it flies away when I do, higher and higher towards the glass, higher and higher into the light and towards the sky. Sing, sing, sing…

 I am dancing with a million butterflies when my class finally finds me.

Author's Note

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