To Free A Broken Butterfly

Searching

In the silence of the night I lay still, listening to the creaking of your footsteps. I counted them, one...two...three. The back door opened while you stepped out, that's my cue. The cue to start the end.

In the darkness I crept down the stairs, relying on my sense of touch to find the way. Shadows disfigured the little house, spider webs clung to the walls and the dim moonlight peeked through the curtains.

You were outside sitting on the lawn chair, naively smoking your old cigars. You were such a fool, oblivious to the fact that soon you would have a dead body left on your hands. A strange feeling of confidence surged through me as I was slinking through the illicit part of the house. I felt invincible.

I found myself instinctively gravitating down an unkept hallway towards a discarded door. Trusting completely in childhood memories I opened the door to what I remembered as the room you and Mum shared. The room wasn't like I remembered though, one half of the room was littered with papers and articles of clothing strewn across the floor, while the other, Mum's side, was perfectly neat albeit covered in a thick layer of dust.

I had no idea where it was, the thing I was looking for, but I knew you had it. You had threatened me with it many times. I searched your side of the room meticulously, looking in all the normal places, in draws, under pillows, between mattresses. Losing faith in the bedroom I trudged towards the door, kicking a box on my way. I looked down in one last flicker of hope only to find an crumpled photo of a happy family, our family.

I looked about two years old in the faded image and I was flanked by a younger version of you and Mum. Three smiling faces were staring down the barrel of the camera from their position on the checkered picnic blanket. I lifted it from it's cradle of dust and blew off the soot. On the back of the picture it read in elegant cursive 'our beautiful family, 1997'. Folding it up I placed it in my breast pocket for safe keeping.

Moving on from the bedroom, I ventured into what looked like a kitchen. The sink cluttered with dirty rotting dishes and a revolting stench filled the air. I gaged, wanting to escape the scene but forced myself further. I had to find it, my little key to heaven.

It was tucked away on the top shelf of the second cupboard. It's shiny metal implied it had been polished recently, I'm not surprised, you always did have a lot of pride in that gun. Holding it gingerly my hand I skidded up the stairs to the sanctuary of my room.

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