Butterflies Float

She walked slowly down the narrow dirt lane, cupping in her hands the most beautiful butterfly she had ever seen. The colours on its wings were vibrant reds and blues…in dots and stripes. The blue was almost the exact same colour as her husbands eyes. A tear escaped from beneath her lashes and fell, unnoticed to the ground. The insect opened and closed its wings in an effort to pump life blood into them. Other butterflies floated by her, but they were not as beautiful as the one in her hand. She had an impulse to crush the life out of it..to control its destiny. Yet she knew it would serve no purpose. She had no right. All the poor beauty ever did to her was land on her, bringing her an untamed instant of pure joy. It struggled to reach her fingertips and she closed her fingers together to form a temporary cage. She liked the way its tiny feet tickled her hands.
She cried out when she tripped over a stone and then realized she’d gone off the road.
Knowing from her high school science class that butterflies had a very short life span, her heart went out to the magnificent beauty in her hands. Two more butterflies floated past her and she saw more in the distance, teasing her with their dance.
Her husband would have cringed if he saw her holding the creature this way. He had many phobias, one of them being entomophobia, the fear of bugs. She imagined a sweat breaking out on his brow and chuckled to herself. She had decided that she was fearless. Always holding her husbands hand and stroking his hair during his panic attacks. She was the strong one and many people had commented on the change of roles in their marriage. She was also the sole breadwinner and had been since he’d developed a fear of germs. Mysophobia the doctor had called it. He was obsessive about it to the point where he would go through several bottles of antibacterial cleaner a day. She was lucky enough to have landed a job that gave her the option to work from home, but she only did so if he was having an extremely bad day. She argued with him constantly about this, but she had won the fight when she insisted that it wasn’t her that had phobias. She needed to get away from him sometimes, but she still loved him with all her heart and knew that she would always be there for him, no matter what. But what new phobia would he come up with the next day…and the next? She wondered.
As she came closer to the iron gate at the end of the road, she opened up her palms and told the butterfly to flee. It moved its wings up and down a few more times and then it floated up into the air, circled around her a few times and then floated back to land on the headstone of her husbands grave. She had once read that birds were the harbingers of souls. They would help the spirits and guide them to the afterlife. But what of butterflies? Why were they here? She studied the remainder of the mourners paying their last respects to her husband. His parents, aunts and uncles had all left after the service. Only a few of his old school chums were there, reminiscing on the “good ole days”. No one mentioned how her husband had died or why. People only smiled and offered condolences. The red and blue butterfly landed on the shoulder of one of the school chums and he absentmindedly slapped it off. It fell to the ground and was trampled by unknowing feet. She shuddered at the tragedy of it and new tears streamed down her face. Some of her husbands chums strolled past her and patted her sympathetically on her back. They did not know she wasn’t crying for her husband. She pushed her hands into her coat pockets and felt the empty pill bottle in there. Smiling, she knew that the first thing she would do when she got home was throw all of his pill bottles away.

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