Chapter Thirty-One

THE BUTTERFLY

The literary fugitive awakes on the floor of an abandoned building. A soot-colored butterfly rests next to his head.

"Get out of here!" he yells, startled.

A window in a dusty wall stands open nearby. He tries to close it, but it's stuck. Scattering sweeps of blue-gray rain rush through it. Large drops of wetness gather on the crumbled wooden pane. The butterfly must've entered through the opening.

When the rain pauses, the man tries to coax the butterfly outside. It flaps its wings frantically; hysterically, rushing up and down about the room.

"Calm down!" the man tells it, to no avail.

The butterfly flies not to the window, but away from it, toward an inside corridor, and vanishes.

"Goofy thing," the man mutters to himself.

The fugitive leaves to run errands, returning that afternoon.

He looks in a bathroom off the corridor. The water doesn't run. Blown-in leaves cover the bottom of the bathtub. When he pushes his hand through the leaves, the butterfly jumps up. A hiding place.

The man doesn't chase the butterfly out. It'd do no good.

As night falls and the man lays down on a blanket to think about his life, maybe to sleep, he notices the butterfly hugging a wall. Its wings are closed. A gray insect is all it is. Why isn't it flying? Maybe it's tired. It looks to be catching its breath, if that's possible. Its moments of nervous flying must exhaust its little life.

Just him and the butterfly. Hah! As he nods off, he notices the thing sitting perplexed on a stack of newspaper beside him. They both can rest. They both can hide.

The man awakes to frustrated flapping. The butterfly is trying to fly, but can't elevate.

"Calm down," the man tells it. "You'll tire yourself."

The butterfly's sooty wings flap and flap.

When the man awakes for real, the butterfly is gone. Maybe it escaped through the window. He never sees it again.