Hundred Words

Four

Four

I dream of the waves, and of riding on the back of a dolphin. The crowds are cheering, sitting on bleachers made of sand, crafted from the landscape of the ocean. They are clapping, shouting, they are-

"Alex, wake up, wake up!" An impatient voice sounds in my ears.

I raise my head, blinking uncomfortably in the sunlight that streams through my window. Mia hovers over me, one fist clenched around a blanket, old and torn with age. Her other hand gently cups around an object, to hidden within her fingers for me to see. She leans her face in close to look at the object, a smile spreading from the corners of her cheeks to her mouth. She motions to her hand.

"Alex, look!"

I sit up, leaning onto my arms for balance, not trying to mask the look of uncertainty on my face. What did she have?

She let down her fingers, her eyes growing in amazement. A butterfly sat cradled in the folds of her skin, a bright swallowtail. It's wings fluttered, and Mia clamped her other hand on top of it to make a cage.

" She doesn't like it here," she whispered sadly.

"I found her out on the patio and I caught her but then shen got sad."

I frowned. " Then why don't you let her go?"

She put on a pout-face. "But I don't want her to go. She's pretty!"

"Well," I said, sitting up straighter and crossing my arms in front of me. "she might want to go home, don't you think?"

Mia just looked down at the floor, suddenly very interested in my shag, carpeted floor.

" Mia. Do you want to know something about butterflies?" I asked, trying to find a way to set the beautiful insect on her way, free from the confining quarters of Mia's fingers.

Still looking down at the floor and her feet, she nodded.

"Whenever a butterfly's wing touches something, anything, their wings are breaking. All the pretty designs on their wings are made up of scales, like a lizard, but so teensy tiny," I held up my thumb and pointer finger and closed then so they were almost touching, to show how small the scales were. "that you can't see them." I paused, biting my lip.

" But," I continued, urging myself to harden my stare. "when the scales brush off on your fingers, she's losing a little bit of her wing and slowly makes flying harder on her, If you want her to be happy and maybe see her again, we need to let her go."

"Sunny..." She murmured, finally looking up.

I cocked my head to one side with a confused glance. "What?'

She held out her hand, uncurling her fingers so I could see the butterfly again. "I named her Sunny!" she explained. "And I don't want her to get hurt. I'm sorry."

She seemed to tell both 'Sunny' and I.

"Can we let her go? Out your window so she remembers our house and come back?"

She asked nervously.

I clasped my hands in front of me. " Sure. She'll get a great view of the ocean."

She jumped up, abandoning her blanket left on the floor, and returning back to earth with a deafening thud. "And she can land on the flowers in the backyard and meet more butterfly friends! Do butterflies have friends?" she questioned dubiously.

"Well, Monarchs go on a big...vacation to Mexico with their friends every year. I bet Swallowtails have friends too." I reasoned.

"That's good. I don't want Sunny to be lonely."

"Neither do I."

I slid the glass pane of my window up, the glass cool, and the breeze blowing my face. The screen was gone, after my dad had attempted to fix it and it's many holes. Instead, I got a special lock on my window that keeps me safe, and "in a case of emergency", it can be used as an emergency exit from the the house, says my mother and father.

Mia rested her hand on the windowsill, her fingers still gently cupped around the bug.

"Are you ready?" I asked.

She nodded, her brown curls bouncing, and her fingers slowly uncurled, her tiny prison melting away.as gently as a breeze. The swallowtail stood still for a moment, it's quivering wings the only part of it moving. Then, with a hesitant step forward, it flung itself into the wind with a graceful unfurling of it's wings and a wild movement of it's antenna.

Mia did a little happy dance, her arms flailing and her smile growing wide on her cheeks, until it spread to me, and we were both smiling. I don't know why I felt so much joy, and was somewhat tickled by my sister's display of joy.

~~~

I remember from last year, sitting bored in reading class, absently tapping the stubby end of my neglected pencil against the scratched surface of the desk. My mind filled with a hum, a resonating echo of the tapping, repeated into a hypnotic tune that made me bob my head slightly, a tune that caused Jess to stare across the room with a puzzled spark in her eye. The teacher pointed to things written in a curly scrawls across the dusty chalkboard, talking about symbolism in stories, and how it was used.

Blah.

Blah.

Blah.

Suddenly, an itch on my back made my hand go up for a brief second.

"Yes, Miss Atkins?" the teacher's voice rose at the front of the class.

Oh crap, I thought with grimace.

"Um, I was stretching...?" It came out like a question, and I cursed myself. Mrs. Watkins was a no-nonsense kind of person, and by me reaching up, I condemned myself, sealed my fate that would end in a probably horrid display of how I hadn't been paying attention.

"Well, while you're at it, why don't you tell me something you want to say about symbolism."

I was surprised. Finally, voicing my opinion instead of answering a question that would surely be drilled into my brain by the end of the week.

I uncrossed my legs and straightened up in my seat, quickly smoothing my shirt and clasping my hands in front of me. A shimmer of my bracelet caught my eye before I cleared my voice and spoke.

"Okay. Why do we have to learn about symbolism?"

Mrs. Watkins just looked back, an amused smile toying on her glossed lips.

"Are you questioning the curriculum, Miss Atkins?"

I stared back at her, trying to shake off the pairs of eyes watching me from every corner of the classroom. "I don't mean that, I mean why do we need to know about this? It's not like we can apply this into our life-" she cut me off with a pointing finger that soon directed itself back to the chalkboard.

With a tilt of her head, the teacher lowered her hand, the ruler she substituted for a pointer stick landing with a harsh clang on the bottom of the chalkboard.

"That's a very... Straightforward demand, Miss Atkins. But in truth, I teach this to you simply because sometime later in life, you'll be bound to notice something, something that hold it's own symbolism in your heart, or mind. And then, you'll be able to not take that moment for granted, and instead get a deeper meaning.

I crossed my legs again, contented with her answer, as she turned back to the board to move onto the next part of the lesson.

~~~

The flashback fades away, leaving me trying to sew together the fragments.

I guess now is a perfect time to get a deeper meaning, about how life is so fragile, and can literally rest in someone's hands.