![]() Butterfly HauntingA Story by RaindanceButterfly haunting Just weeks before my wedding Butterflies haunted me. One rested on the wall next to my bed. He was white with
delicate pink and yellow patterns outlined in a rich dark blue. He kept me
company while I sank into the world of Hemingway. He was right beside me when I
chased hunters in Africa, watched bull fights and sobbed about a hinted at
abortion and the human condition. He refused to move. In the end I gently chased
him out of the window for I feared he would starve to death otherwise. Literature cannot
feed your body. One followed the bus I caught with my bridesmaid to visit the salon. She was a velvety brown with white swirls on the wings. She couldn’t keep up with the bus but managed to wish us good luck, fluttering about in a frantic good bye dance. “Lovely colours!” the bridesmaid exclaimed. One sat on a broad green leaf in the garden while I poured
my doubts into a sympathetic ear of a long-suffering friend. She (the
butterfly) looked like a would-be butterfly-zebra with her black and white
patches. The two tiny patches at the end of her wings were a pleasing orange
tinged with the palest of greens. “You will cross the bridge when you come to it.” The
long-suffering friend stated. One escorted me home on a sunlit morning following a night
of revelry with the girls. He had blue-black sprinkled with a hint of silver. He
was the largest of them all and reminded me of a childhood friend I once made
in the woods. The said friendship lasted a single blissful day for he was a
migrant butterfly of a largish size. “That was a beautiful day in the woods.” I reminisced A week before the wedding, a throng of butterflies infested
a mango tree near the Kelaniya Bridge. They were orange, yellow and white. They
swarmed above the gold tinted mango flowers in a frenzy. I drank in the beauty,
the dust, petrol fumes, warm sunshine, the noise, the pulsating energy and the
dirty waters beneath the bridge. © 2015 Raindance |
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