The Butterfly
A short story by
Robert L. Arend
This cellar has always made my flesh crawl, now so much more than ever. I shall surely perish from the cold, the damp and malnutrition. Or will death be served by that hideous creature which, at this very moment, causes the entire house to quake, decades of detritus to rain on me, and wary rats to abandon their hungry vigil by my dying self? More than hunger, the rats must be equally driven by their collective desire to avenge the murder of their own. Yes, I killed a few to stall my own starvation, the raw and warm meat tasty; so violent was my need of food. Each casualty made the survivors more cautious. They now huddle far from my quivering grasp. I quench my thirst with water from an earlier rainstorm that had streamed through gaps in the foundation where mortar had crumbled, extending my life a few minutes more; yet surely the impatient rodents will soon find courage, charge and, no longer hindered, tear the flesh from my bones.
O, Death, what keeps you? Did you stop to have a drink with your comrades? Three maddening weeks have I awaited you in this dark and spider-infested cellar. Take my soul and have done with it!
Death comes for me in the year 1888. I had hoped to live long enough to witness the birth of the new century.
Have only ten months gone by since I received Mother’s message? Mother had urged my speedy flight home. At long last, Father had returned to her, she claimed.
I hastened from New York to Connecticut immediately—though I had witnessed Father’s cruel death eleven summers before.
Mother’s love for me had been smothered by the weight of blame she had placed on me for Father’s demise. Indeed, I suppose my innocent insistence that father fulfill his promise to take me hunting may truly be why he lives not this day.
Always had Father been more wild than tame. He suffered when confined to indoors for too long. As part of their marriage vows, however, Mother had insisted Father relinquish his uncivilized life in the wilds of Connecticut in favor of domestication within the walls of her house. The morning of Father’s decision to keep his promise to me was at the very moment he had reached the limit of his patience with Mother’s domineering; then did Father return to the wilderness forever.
I can still hear Mother’s protests fading while Father and I made distance from home.
Of the week of hunting planned, Father and I shared a bond of but two days before the wild brought our rare union to a brutal conclusion.
Mad was the morning of the third day. Wretched was I, who awoke in eager anticipation of an innocent dawn, sprinkled with sweet songs of unseen birds, when crimson rain fell and streamed down my face and body. Shrieks of agony forced me to stare up at the gruesome battle in the sky.
High over the treetops, Father struggled to free himself from the claws of a giant predator hawk. Before my senses could grasp the peril of that moment, yet another monolithic fowl sped past the startled hawk and vanished into the clouds with Father’s head.
***
“You did it! You killed him!” Mother had accused me. “You murdered my husband!”
“I didn’t, Mother,” I had pleaded. “It was the hawks! The hawks did it!”
Mother’s eyes flared. “You did it. I wanted my husband safe from the wild, but you forced him back into it. Now he is dead and you are responsible. I should kill you with all the hate I feel now.”
By my neck, Mother lifted me off my knees. She threw me against the wall in spite of my pleas for mercy. Yet, when she raised her hand to slap me, my terrified eyes met hers and she wilted, dropped to her knees and wept.
