Sleeping’s never easy, no matter what my mom says. No matter how many times I beg to stay up later, no matter how many times she says, “just think of happy things” it never comes with ease. I sit and wait, night after night, making shapes in the shadows of my room.
“Goodnight, Butterfly. I’ll see you in the morning”
Tonight is no different.
I’m in bed already, being the youngest on a school night. The landing light creeps under the doorframe as Tony stampedes up the stairs, trying to get in a few more keepie-uppies before sleep. Eventually, after much stumbling and bumbling the landing lights out, only the cool blue glow of Nate’s computer screen from his room, where he sits, lost in the Web. Down the hall, mom’s voice fades to nothing and Nate’s PC eventually dies-or he falls asleep on the off button again.
If only it were so easy.
I lie in bed, in the quiet and the sleep, yet remained untouched by it. I go into the usual routine. Homework, done, clothes, on chair, laundry, done, conscience, clear…now what?
I sigh and turn over the day’s events. Nothing, nothing unusual, out of the ordinary…a void. A blank abyss of nothing. The luminous quality of English class flickers beneath my eyelashes. The colourful, borderline gaudy displays swallowing the walls. Scuffed sneakers kicking at the table legs in boredom; no one wants to hear about the Lady of Shalott who lived in a tower like Rapunzel and died in a boat for a knight. Ms Davis pontificates at the board, carefully gesticulating, trying-and failing-to bring “many towered Camelot” to life.
I tilt back in my seat, textbook not even open. The troll to my right is goggling gormlessly at his copy, his dyslexic brain attempting to make sense of the squiggly lines in front of him. The Barbie doll next to him is aimlessly studying her nails and fiddling with her neon coloured pen.
I glance past at the new girl behind, head bent in Tennyson’s words, rainbow-painted wrists stretched out, vibrant against the wood. The bracelets wind around and around, a dizzying kaleidoscope of colour, the scarlet veins and striped wounds shining through.
I turn back to the front to catch Chris Bromilow walking in from the restroom. I thud back on all fours and watch him sit, one row across, one seat ahead. I study those angelic curls; the colour, the curve, the shine. The broad shoulders, the smooth neck, all hiding the brute, beautiful power he holds. Over them and over me, in every possible way. The lines of my poem ring back, so carefully scripted, so hurriedly torn into tiny paper-flakes that fluttered to the floor. The uproar it caused, with those scarlet flowers that bloomed on the crimson valentine cards coupled with the rejection from the pack, my angel who fell so far. Circles indeed are vicious, when people don’t understand and are too blind to see. They don’t see some people either. My gaze brushes over those people veiled in the shadow of memory, always there, just accidentally forgotten. Am I one of them? So purposely ignored?
The slow asphyxiation of the poem and of any possible interest continues. I turn to the window, the clouds oblivious to the pain brimming over inside these walls. Like an alien fleet of grey, puffy shapeless ships, sailing onward till they fall and disintegrate. Not the perfect virginal white of picture books nor the black tornado swirls of artistic licence, just average boring grey. Stacked up puffs, a latticework of average, dull nothing.
A bumblebee knocks at the window, clumsily fumbling at the glass, almost knocking itself out. In a dazed black-and-yellow blur it careens through the air and drops onto the desk to my right. Yes, people panic. Yes, those nearest leap out of their seats like they certainly cannot during sport. I sit and watch as they all filter away to various corners of the room as the bee awkwardly gets to its feet. All sound has stopped. I lean across and offer my hand. I blink as the bumblebee morphs into a large wasp, sleek stripes of warning at my descending fingertips. Screams break upon my ears as the sting breaks upon my skin, sending pain stabbing through me.
Blearily, I look up to see the displays of writing tearing themselves free of the walls, folding into garish paper birds that fly up, up and out of the none-existent window. Each copy of the Lady of Shalott closes smartly and lobs itself at Ms Davis, in punishment for her atrocious reading. The shadows in each corner unwind like a reel of thread, rippling through the room, their touch blurring all into one. The majority of the class is congregated at the board and any others have vanished. The shadows zoom towards them, slamming them into the board, like a line of two-dimensional paper dolls. All the colour they have begins to run like raindrops on glass.
I glance at the wasp now attached to my middle finger. It mutates into a bird, speckled and brown, to a dragon, scaled and sharp, to a cat, sophisticated and striped, to a butterfly, paper thin and jewel bright.
I stand, holding it out, up to the light.
Opposite me, where the board was, there I am. Reflected. Projected. Observing myself. The desks, the chairs, the empty display boards in a perfect jigsaw puzzle, the silence and suspense akin to a graveyard. The picture utterly washed of colour, as though it leaked away with the people. They wait, expectant.
On my desk, a pair of silver scissors sit, glossy silver blades hidden, folded together. In one hand I hold them, in the other, the butterfly sits and watches.
My reflection watches too. Pure. Whole. Undamaged. Untouchable.
I open the scissors, my other arm twitching in response.
…snipsnipsnipsnipsnip…
The pieces of vibrant, patterned, beautiful butterfly fall down to the abyss I have dreamed of for so long…
As my eyelids flicker open and I wake.
“Caden? Are you asleep?”
