The Butterfly Paradox

Chapter 2:

After a light dinner, Alyanna transferred to the living room and gravitated to the couch. Grandma Violeta followed behind her while lulling the same aged cradlesong she used to sing to Alyanna.

Alyanna instantly recognized the lullaby. The melody of it sent a spark in her heart. Suddenly, she wanted to be a child again. Suddenly, she wanted to return to the time when the only problem she had was guessing the names of the butterflies and going to places in search of them. Those good old days. Those good old memories.

She stapled her hands together over her left knee. She waited for her grandmother to slouch beside her. "When was the last time Mom and Dad visited here?" she asked as soon as her grandmother sat down.

Grandma Violeta grunted. "I couldn't even remember." Before taking the plunge, she looked up at the ceiling as if the answers were there. "But I remember your father sending me some goods last month. It came with a letter saying they've been attentive lately and I understand why. He promised to visit me when all their hustles in school were over."

On the wall in front of them dangled frames of various shapes, colors, and sizes. They contained preserved butterfly specimens. As soon as Alyanna caught a glimpse of them, her eyes grew big. She recognized them well. Those poor, alluring butterflies she and her grandma found dead in the garden. Those dead butterflies they dried out and kept for display.

Alyanna could name them all— identify their characteristics, recite their scientific names, and guess where they could be lurking. That was how obsessed she was with them.

But instead of doing what she could've done, she only prolonged her gaze on them until her grandmother noticed her.

"Do you still remember them?" Grandma Violeta asked, her lips forming into a genuine smile.

"Yes. Especially the tale you always told me before bedtime," Alyanna answered, looking up to the old woman beside her. "That's the first one you introduced to me, right?"

"Ah! Indeed," her Grandma Violeta agreed.

And all of a sudden, a flashback suddenly visited her.

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"Grandma, quick! Come over! Look at what's in the garden! It's a dead butterfly!" Twelve years old Alyanna hollered at the top of her lungs as she frantically meandered over the puddles and into the house to fetch her Grandma Violeta.

She pulled her grandmother out of the living room, thrilled to show her the dead butterfly stowed on her cooking set toys beneath the flowering shrubbery.

"What's with the hurry, Alyanna?" her grandmother asked, clueless about her granddaughter talking gibberish due to overpowering excitement.

"I told you, I just found an enormously big brown butterfly! It's dead!" Alyanna answered. The engaging pitch of her voice intrigued the animals on the farm by the ongoing fuss.

When they arrived at the garden, Alyanna crouched down to reach for the butterfly. While having it on her draggled little palms, she expressed, "I just can't believe it! It is so huge! I don't think this is still a butterfly at all! I believe this one's already a fairy!"

Grandma Violeta couldn't help herself but just smile. With her lips like a boat on a sail, she went down on bended knees and hugged her precious, tiny angel. She transferred the winged creature to her gnarled, wrinkled hands and let it sit there for a while.

"This is called a Melanitis Leda. Also known as the common evening brown," she said. "But you could be right, sweetheart. This one is possibly a fairy," she concluded as she stared at the butterfly's brown, extensive wings, intricately decorated with dark circles and white linings.