Recollection (epilogue)

I sent this message prematurely, before the ink had fully dried on this incident.

As I was writing the message, I wasn't quite sure how to end it. Instead of sending the message on the wings of a butterfly, I almost said used the wings of a dragonfly, perhaps because they have long been a favorite for more than just their name. I love the flashing color of their opalescent bodies, the web-like transparency of their wings, the way they hover and flit from place to place with startling quickness and accuracy, the way they dry their wings perched on cattails and reeds within moments of emerging.

I should have listened to my instinct.

When we picked up Karen's car at the garage where we bought a new set of tires this afternoon, I spotted a dragonfly, bright green and iridescent, trapped in the plate glass window of the waiting area. Her instincts were at war with a reality she could not perceive. She was drawn to the light but had no way to comprehend the window held her captive. So she buzzed and bashed herself against the glass, hoping like the clinically insane that the same action repeated might yet yield a new outcome, not far from me some days. While she could see her destination clearly, she didn't have the ability to leave.

While Karen settled the bill, I coaxed her onto a finger. Each time I moved toward the door, she saw the sky move away from her and flew back toward the window. I couldn't give up on her. I finally thought to shade her eyes with my other hand so she couldn't see the motion as I carried her to the door. Her eyes cushioned against the reality she could no longer understand, she became content to rest on my finger, perched feather-light on her six dark legs within the cocoon of my palm. Just outside, I lifted my hand to reveal the sky. The last I saw her she was flying over the pavilion covering the gas pumps, a streak of green against the piercing blue of the afternoon sky.

I knew then the circle was complete, that this small creature was the final thread in a tapestry of causality spun some twenty four hours before. Not the wings of a butterfly raising a storm, rather a personal storm raising the wings of a dragonfly.

Driving home I knew it was worth the price of a new set of tires that we would have bought later anyway to see her fly free for her remaining hours or days, worth any inconvenience to set her back on the path of whatever her remaining destiny might be.


© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III