The Radio Static

The Butterfly Effect

Inside this room, you can hear a constant static sound from the wall. It's ignorable at first, but now, it's beginning to get on your nerves. So, you go to the wall you can hear it from and search. There, you find a small sliding door, and upon moving it down... is a butterfly in a glass cage, with a radio inside with it playing static.

Opening the sliding doors above it, there's a manner of tubes, pipes, and machines you don't have the faintest clue of, all hooked up to the enclosure. After a moment, a drop of... what seems to likely be nectar, drips into the cage and is eaten quickly.

An automated environment for a butterfly? Why? Perhaps you can find out if you keep reading.

4/19/10 - Butterfly Effect

"Hello. Today I caught a butterfly! It's so cute! I got it in a little cage I made out of metal, but I don't know how to feed it. They land on flowers a lot, so I put one in there- oh! It landed on it! Good!

Okay, so what else happened today... right, why did I catch it? So I could see how it reacts to radio! I know it can't understand words like humans, but maybe it can understand the static instead?

I'm not sure, so I'm gonna leave it next to the radio overnight and see what happens!"

4/20/10 - Butterfly Effect

"Coco saw what I did with the butterfly and got upset. She asked me why, and I said it was an experiment. She got a bit less upset then, but still didn't get it. I tried explaining to her, but she thought I was crazy!

My theory was to see if the butterfly could understand the static. If it will sorta zone out like I do.

Right right, let me explain that too. Listening to the radio is fun, even if it's all military and stuff. But listening to it when not tuned... the radio static? It... I don't know how to explain it exactly. I call it a sorta hum when I hear it. Not like the radio itself, but like, a humming beneath it.

I can hear it in my head once in a while, if I focus really hard. It's like words without words.

The butterfly didn't though, I don't think. It just kept trying to fly away from it. I plan on letting them keep listening to it later, once I can get a bigger cage, so it can go as far away as it wants. Maybe it just needs it on and off like I do?

If I can get the butterfly to understand, maybe I can get the other kids to."

At that, it makes more sense to you what the butterfly is doing in that cage. It does bring to question, however, if the maid is in the same situation. Is the maid listening to the static upon her mistress' command?

Noting this, you decide to go out to her and ask her. Only getting a noncommittal answer in response, of course. This family did tend to be very self contained. Lacking a mother, if you recall correctly.

All you could glean from the older maid was that, with the amount the young Vera listened to static, it became disconcerting to be without.

This brings to question what she heard in it, though. It could be explained like the maid's reason, but... it's doubtful. Looking back on the text, it feels more like she may have heard connections at times. Or perhaps, she was hallucinating?

Then again, she said herself she couldn't explain it well. Maybe the next entries will shed more light on this oddity?

4/21/10 - Butterfly Effect

I told Marianne about my butterfly, and she was really excited to see! I knew she would be, we both love insects!

Even though other kids think we're gross, it doesn't really matter. As long as we have someone else who doesn't!

There's a break in the text. Seems she wrote this later in the day.

But... she didn't like the way it was in a cage. I asked why, and she said putting it next to the radio all day was torture. But, why would it matter? It's for the sake of learning.

Well, I tried explaining the static to her, but she didn't get it either. I guess I should just not tell people about it. I'll tell my journal about it, and maybe it'll make me feel less lonely.

Maybe if I can explain it all to people, then they won't look at me like that anymore.