He dragged his finger along the edge of the painted butterfly wings, coating his fingertip with grainy pollen. The fragile wing cracked under the pressure and a small flake of black unhinged itself and flipped through the still air as it fluttered to the ground.
Peter tried to decide if his conscience would allow him to let this insect fly away, damaged and unpretty as it was. Should he not rather crush its small body and be done with it? Or perhaps instead he should pin its wings against the ground with stones and let it slowly burn away in the hot sun.
He took the other wing between his fingers and carefully pressed along its edge, destroying it so as to make it match the other. And as the border of the colorful wing crumbled, the dark furry butterfly body trembled weakly.
He unpinched his fingers and let it free, and the butterfly flew away, up beyond the tree it had been captured under. Peter collected the broken remnants of butterfly wings into a silky green-yellow leaf, folded it three times, and slipped it into his pocket.
Then, rising from the tree stump he was sitting next to, he walked palpably toward the winding creek that ran through these woods. He sat down next to it, resting in the dirt and dirty autumn leaves, and he dipped his cupped hand into the water, twice pulling a drink to his lips. The clear water tasted like the frozen earth that it had trickled from.
Peter closed his eyes and reached deep into the pocket that did not have a folded leaf in it, and after some searching he retrieved a penny. He found a soft spot in the creek and pushed the coin into the dirt there. Then he placed a rock over it and let out into the world his desperate hope that he could be more than what he already was.
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