The way I see it; the world hangs in a balance, cheesy, I know, but it’s true. A kid named Elizabeth, four years old, set this in stone for me. She had cancer. Leukemia. Just existing, in a way, hurt her. Her nerves were sensitive; she was always in at least a small amount of pain. Her body was weak, but she was strong. She faced every day with a weak smile, although it didn’t fool anyone but her. She lay in her white prison, on her bed. A picture of butterflies in a painted meadow hung on the wall. She had never seen a real butterfly; she was in the hospital too much. Her mother died of a broken heart when she was diagnosed, but her father, he stayed by her bed every night. He did his work on an ancient laptop; sometimes it got so hot that it burnt his legs. He didn’t care; he wanted to be with her. She was in more pain than he could ever imagine. Every night, after she went to sleep, hey would hold her hand and pray. “Lord, please lord, heal my baby. She’s in so much pain. She’s so young. She can’t die yet. Make her better, take me instead. Amen.” Although he had stopped believing in God long ago, he kept praying. He didn’t know why. I think it was because it made him feel like he was doing something for her. One night, as he was speaking quietly to no one, she woke up. She kept pointing to the corner and smiling. Saying that she saw the butterflies. Her father held her hand tighter, she started to fall asleep again. He kept talking, forcing her to stay awake.
This was the night that a young man, Scott Abarham, got in a car wreck. Not a bad one, but his leg was severely fucked up. A cute nurse wheeled him up to the fourth floor, the pediatric cancer ward. Some say that the cancer ward has a different feel than the other floors; they say it feels like death is just around the corner. Waiting, watching, like he could pounce on anyone who went in. Scott looked around wearily. Most of the people in the ward were sleeping quietly. He felt a bit sorry for them, but his leg hurt. Then he rolled by Elizabeth’s room. Her dad was shaking her and yelling softly. She was falling asleep and smiling at the corner, saying something about butterflies. The injured have a keen sense when it comes to death, Scott could sense that death was sitting in the corner, among the butterflies. At that moment, Scott’s leg stopped hurting for a second, and his heart started to. Elizabeth fell deeper into sleep, she was almost gone. Scott said something along the lines of ‘I wish that was me.’ It wasn’t exactly that, but it’s close enough. The room was long passed for Scott now, his leg hurt again and he was still kind of drunk. Although he had forgotten her, something happened to Elizabeth that night; she fell asleep, and nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. Her father fell asleep holding her hand, and, in the morning, a monarch butterfly was on her window. She shrieked with delight, something she had never done before.
Elizabeth got better over time, Scott got worse. Her cells began to reproduce normally, Scott’s surgery went wrong. Her cancer shrunk, Scott got Pneumonia from not walking for so long. Elizabeth had hair for the first time she remembered, Scott’s leg got infected. On the night before Elizabeth was released, Scott died. Today,the stairway to heaven was in Elizabeth’s room. She was walking around her room, almost dancing, with joy. Her dad had promised to take her to see the butterflies at the zoo. Scott, on the way there, had turned to death, who was wearing a rather handsome suit, and asked him; “Why me?” I don’t think that there have ever been two words spoken more than those. They sum up humanity pretty well; Why me? Death turned to him and smiled, Scott wasn’t due to die for several minutes, he could explain.
“Because you asked to.”
“I had a broken leg that was all. I wasn’t in enough pain to want to die.” He replied
“That’s not what I meant,” Death opened the door to Elizabeth’s room, “do you remember her?” Death said pointing to the girl who was sleeping on the bed.
“How could I? I’ve never met her, I don’t think.” Scott replied.
“Not formally,” death said.
“What does that mean?” Scott felt slightly angry; he had heard that death was a mystery, but he had hoped that Death was different.
“You went past her on the night you came here, the night she was going to die. I was in the corner, with the butterflies. You looked upon her with pity, and, you said that you wished it was you in her place. I took mercy, even I don’t like taking one that young.”
“Oh yeah, yeah. Her dad was over her bed, trying to keep her awake. I always sort of wondered if she lived, but I didn’t think she did.”
Death and Scott started to walk up the stairs, when Scott turned around and looked at the girl again. Her father was holding her hand again, but he was asleep by the bedside. Everything was the same. Everything had changed. For once, everything in the little girl’s life was happy.
“Do you regret it?” Death asked.
“What?” Scott replied.
“Your sacrifice.”
Scott sat for a long time before he answered. “No,” he said with a sad smile, “not in the least.”
He turned and walked up the stairs. They disappeared behind him, leaving only a picture of butterflies hanging on the wall.
Everything hangs in a balance; good, and evil, life, and death, the beginning, and the end, happiness, and sorrow. And I think that’s okay. We have to take the good with the bad, because if we didn’t, there would be nothing for us to live for. If we only had good things, we couldn’t appreciate the butterflies.
