The Butterfly

The butterfly hurts me. To this day it hurts me, and for the rest of my life I will be repenting of its death. Some of it is guilt, some of it is horror, but it is all inextricably intertwined with the dark, haunted world of my childhood.

It was bright that day, though. It was spring or summer. The neighborhood I lived in came into bloom during the warm seasons. My mom and I used to take walks up and over the hillside to look at the flowers and eventually end up at a house with a koi pond out front. There were all sorts of insects there, all sorts of life. But it will always seem haunted to me, I suspect, and shadowed. There were secrets in that neighborhood and fear hidden behind closed doors and closed mouths. I saw it, I felt it, I was part of it, but most of the people who lived on our block went about their lives oblivious to the madness of their neighbors. How lucky for them.

That day Kelly and I were heading up the driveway to play in the front yard, and I saw a monarch butterfly land on the pavement in front of us. It was beautiful and delicate the way most butterflies are. So delicate, and innocent. I felt the sudden urge to step on one of its wings, to see if it would be crushed or not. I don't know why the urge possessed me, or why I obeyed. I brought my shoe down squarely on one wing, and of course the butterfly was damaged. It couldn't fly. Kelly cried out about it and got upset and I felt, in that moment, like a monster.

But then the real monster appeared, as though he had been waiting for the opportunity. He heard Kelly's cries and came over, though I don't believe for a moment that he meant to help. He picked up the butterfly and ordered us to follow him, which we did. I wish we hadn't. And when he got to her bedroom, he took a long pin and shoved it through the butterfly, killing it right above her bed. It twitched for a short time as we watched, and I don't think either of us could turn away. Inside I screamed for it, and for us. I was sorry I had ever hurt it. I was sorry I'd even had the thought. I was so sorry for everything. And I hated, hated that he had made me an accomplice to the murder of the butterfly.

Few times have I seen an act so deliberately, powerfully symbolic, but the killing of the butterfly was no accident, and the placement of its corpse howled with meaning. I remember my eyes stretched wide and my voice died in my throat. I remember Kelly's cries ceased altogether. I remember how he watched our faces, as if to savor what he saw there. He got what he wanted that day - we were afraid.

The fear is gone now, but not the regret. For the rest of my life I will do penance for that one, hideous, thoughtless deed. I will ache for the death of a butterfly on a bright day before I was ten. I will remember that it ever lived though the world has long forgotten - just as I will remember what her stepfather did, what he thought no one would ever know, or tell, or avenge. If I could have any revenge, it would be for that poor creature that twitched on the wall, more than for myself or Kelly. At least I could have screamed, even though I didn't; the butterfly had no voice, no voice at all.