Published: September 23, 2010

Under the lilac tree, within the virgin bushes, lay a lanky body of about twelve. Feeding upon the solitude of the humble wind, the child’s thinly sliced limbs waved their way through the air imitating a bald eagle. Her awfully bitten nails cascaded the red drapery that housed itself within the wounded pale flesh, and stung every time an itch would plague itself upon it. Stuck within the melancholic capsule of time, she wished to grasp this moment with her deviant fiddles and embrace the stars above her head rather than the ice beneath her feet. Draping herself along the prelapsarian landscape, she wondered what color her future would be painted, and whether her new life, her new owner, would spend endless nights observing her Venus or rather Botticelli himself; she pondered the latter, but would witness the first. The child’s persona existed within the realm of her imagination, and as clearly as one sees the abyss of a stream, she saw the end of her existence. She would no longer be able to openly question what color were the eyes of the wind and where exactly a river reaches its end. She would lose herself in this labyrinth known to many as paradise, and would live in eternal pandemonium; while in her womb a garden full of white carnations would sprout and massacre the glory of the monthly lilies. Deafening from the silence of the silent whirlpool and blinded by the beauty of the storm cloud, the child would travel from this very solitude onto the greater fires of the city. In a hurry with a rattle of breath, she observed her polished surroundings, and suddenly her gaze came upon a somewhat hybrid butterfly. As the creature made its way upon the road of the shivering milky hip of the onlooker, its ambiguous exhalations and metamorphosis fascinated the dreamy child. The soft pattern that wove itself upon the odd creature stood out from what now seemed like an orthodox environment, and soon enough became oppressed for the rapid rays that streamed along its invertebrate. The butterfly indulged upon the pure surface of the child’s thigh and danced in circles, shrills and glory. An audience of cry and worship cheered on the insect and pleaded for more; eyes full of magic and escape fed upon the luring movements of the libertine in dance. This was Eden and this was love, and our frail cherub hailed the freedom-scented aroma that the butterfly so easily exerted. But the deceit of night itself is life’s most unforgiving charlatan, and as the darkness rose upon the main performer, with it at once it brought its death. The butterfly now rested ugly and contorted, its colors gone, its spirit worthless. As it slid along the mountains of the child’s skirt its soul rose high up and onto angelic verses, while its lamented residue was left to blend with the once golden but now rotten tree. The woman watched this, distraught, and as she stood within the fading shadow of the lilac tree her limbs grew stronger and her lanky body now stood still. She made her way home through the animal revelry of intoxicated shouts and stench, and decided then and there that she would do all in order to flash just for an instant among these helpless dying souls.