I shuffled on my knees toward the gravestone, my hands clutching at the stem of a flower, and then I closed my eyes and lay down on the grass, imitating the body below. I thought of the sun, of its dying heat and smoulder. Flickers of mass tickled my brain, and I fantasised about her: the gorgeousness of her.
In my dreams, I found her book and divorced the pages and read her story.
Puddles
‘What is this toil?’ asked the ladybird.
‘Nothing but being loyal,’ replied the butterfly.
‘But to who?’
‘Need you ask?’
The ladybird shook her head. ‘I suppose not.’
‘How do I look?’ asked the butterfly.
‘Quite fine. As always. And me?’
The butterfly reached out a leg and brushed a besmirching particle of something from the forewing of the ladybird.
‘Same, ladybird.’
The pair shadowed the falling sun and drove the sea to recession. To the Island they advanced. The wind told them to retreat. Only giants dare play in this bay.
‘”Are you content with your sight?” the bee asked me. I pondered for a short while and replied, “I have viewed a universe, and still, I am unsatisfied. I can continue to observe the cycles and become ever more stagnant with each turn. I can breed illusions to harvest joy and only fill my belly with sweet rottenness. I can be content. I can be anything. But I have yet to be me.”
“You will always be you, butterfly,” the bee said. “It isn’t worth your life. It’s just a glimpse, a glimmer, only, there will be no time to collect your thoughts. There will be no story to tell. It will be the end of you.”
‘The bee’s pleas did nothing to deter me, so I gave him what he wanted and presented a gift of pollen, and he spoke no more. He fashioned a map of the Island and turned his back on me.
“It will be my beginning,” I declared, and he scoffed. He lost somebody, but they found themselves.’
‘Who is this bee?’ asked the ladybird.
‘He is the only one to have returned from the Island. The bee and the dragonfly had made a pact, just as you and I have, but when the bee saw the end that the dragonfly came to, he cowardly fled. Now he lives in the Tree that is settled on the Mount from where the Four Rivers flow, and each day he spins a different yarn to those who will listen, but only his ears hear. I wanted to tempt him away from the Tree, to join us, but thought better than to protrude the matter; him being stung by his previous encounter.’
The ladybird nodded.
The pair pushed onwards, wings furious. The cry of the wind was ignored. The clouds were strewn across the sky, reflecting long, scattered rays of sun, forging a land above, aglow with majestic pinks and corrupted whites. Quite soon, the finer details of the Island gathered before them.
‘We will see ourselves,’ beamed the butterfly. ‘My identity will no longer base itself upon the stray tongues of another, dazed by uncertainty. We are stifled creatures: our portraits incomplete. To know oneself is a necessity; even if this feverish chase will bring us to an end.’
‘Do you then not trust my descriptive of you?’ asked the ladybird.
‘I do not. I trust that you depict an image, just as I reveal one to you, but they are deficient. You ought to see yourself.’
‘We are gifts for the eyes of others,’ said the ladybird.
‘We are no such thing,’ protested the butterfly, but the ladybird continued.
‘Should your form not lend itself to another? I see I when I see you. All your glories and villainies; your beauty and repugnancy; every dream you birth, and every nightmare that terrorizes you, I share them too. Every facet of each other we grasp and make our own. We are reflections of each other. You need not journey to the Island to see yourself. I am here before you.’
‘Then why do you seek a sighting?’ asked the butterfly.
‘I need not proof, only faith,’ replied the ladybird. ‘There is nothing that can be revealed to me that I have not seen before. But I am tired of seeing, you see?’
The butterfly knowingly nodded.
The winged creatures of symmetry made contact with the Island, employing all energies to surmount the wind, clinging to rocks and blades of grass to rest their fragilities for a moment at a time. Not once did they turn to face the mainland. The pair wandered the Island, navigating close to the ground. They hovered above the edge of a cliff and stared down toward the rocks that jutted from the sea, like altars, casually strewn by giants. The ladybird and the butterfly found themselves a beach that was sheltered from the wind, and sat on the sand, stretching their wings and resting their bodies, soaking the last of the goodness from the rays.
‘We must hurry before the light is lost,’ pressed the butterfly.
‘Who will go first?’ asked the ladybird.
‘I thought that perhaps we could do it together,’ said the butterfly. ‘I would like to share my reflection with you.’
The ladybird gazed upon the scales of her friend’s wings. How beautiful the flying flower.
The pair thanked and wished the other well. To the mirror they flew. Wedged in the cliff face, it was no bigger than the head of a daisy. A plane-faced rock jutted out beneath the mirror. The pair stood on it, gazing up toward the looking glass. The mirror was sized for one and not two. The creatures stared into one another, searching for an answer, before the butterfly decided for them both and bid farewell. The butterfly rose to meet the mirror and grew into a smile.
‘I have found a truth,’ exclaimed the butterfly, and with that, the butterfly’s form turned to water and then burst, forming tiny puddles on the rock. The ladybird stood amid the puddles, amid the remains of her friend. The puddles were eaten by the sun. One became one became one.
I sat motionless, startled by these scribes, lost in a lust. I retired her story to her bag, fastened the clasp and switched off the lights. The moon poured into the room, frantically ridding itself of the endless pails of reflection, drenching it in a hubbub of greys that teased the sight. Corners bid farewell and new shapes were elected to represent the old. My room was no longer my own, but that of the night. I looked from a shadow to her slumber. She lay saturated in achromatic dapples. The lighter shades brought to prominence two features: her hand and her eyes. I thrust my gaze upon the slender section of her arm and examined it for some time. Her wrist was sealed with a watch that tickled my ears. The palm of her hand was shaped just so for the grasp of another. Her instruments of manipulation, of sensation, rolled inwards, all except her index finger, which pointed to the sky. And there I stared, thinking how I would weave fingers together, read her palm. My thoughts drifted. I followed her being to her lungs, which sought so little air and ceded just the same. The sudden flickering of her eyelids drew the attention of my eyes, and there and then I wanted to cram myself into her dreams: to view the spectacle of her mind. And there, after a little while, I left the Land of Nod.
I awoke just as the sun was being lowered and stretched by legions, melting, as if it had met its match. I kissed the warm ground beneath me, laid the flower down, and wandered off somewhere.