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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1439577-The-Flutterby
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by Mai Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E · Short Story · Nature · #1439577
An experimental piece, playing on sounds and devices used in poetry. That sort of thing.
I wrote this what seems like ages ago, but I had fun doing it so I hope you like reading it. Don't forget to review!
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The Flutterby

Violet-blue sky with lots of flutterbies, dancing the summer waltz, prancing to love’s scented pulse. A little chubby face looks up with glee, the little girl’s hair, blonde, caresses her knees. Up she jumps! Pitter-pat pitter-pat, her bare feet run on paving slabs. Long stems as high as her face- no higher, higher! They reach and stretch like flowering buds worshiping the sun; she is a tiny figure lost amongst the giant metropolitans of the natural world. One, two, three, four! She counts the flutterbies that twine together; their black eyes framed by painted red wink at her, princely chests coated in a velvet fur.
The little girl travels her way to dusty pink plants that lavish themselves across her path, her tummy protruding she stands silently as one of the dancing flutterbies lands just an arms distance away. She waits like the stalker in the grasses, waits like her granny said, till it’s back is turned and it’s wings are closed, sunbathing, stupefied by warmth into it’s pose.
Slow, slow creep. One step, hands lower, a fleshy cave. Breathe, prepare, one second longer then, pounce! She wraps her hands around the flutterby, feeling its fluttery fluttery wings against her palms. She closes the gaps between her fingers, the flutterby is sure not to linger, if it can find a gap, to push itself threw. Darkness must now surround the tiny creature. It suddenly settles. Perhaps calmed by this- does it mistake it for nighttime? Quickly she releases it into her jam pot with punctured holes in the top, a stick, and a couple of buttercups furnishing the insides.
Squalidly happy, she raises her prize to the sun, the flutterby dazzling, a blur, movement all as one. The girl contemplates in her simple way, peers closely, inspects her flutterby’s legs, gentle antennae with the bobbly bits, and the soft patter-patter it’s wings frantically make against its circumscriptive enclosure. A small frown forms upon her otherwise un-creased forehead, as that patter-patter becomes louder and louder into her consciousness. The flutterby, feverish, hits, throws, pounds itself against the glass sides. It ignores the flowers she had handpicked thinking they would suitably please; it does not land on the brilliantly green primrose leaves. Disappointment at first spreads across her face, then she presses her small head closer, an inquirer. Her flutterby finally rests on the lid upside-down, it’s wings beat, beat, slower but powerful. She sees, and then understands: her butterfly does not like jam jars or human hands, but the open plains, the skies as wide as it is possible to stretch. Again: patter-pat. With one last lingering look at the beauty captured before her, she twists the top and…

Release!

The flutterby is gone, almost as if carried by a sudden gust of wind, swept across her granny’s garden. But no, it’s its own passion for the sweet air. The little girl watches it, her keen eyes on the flutterby, and before her it shows one final somersault, one of total joy as is bursting out of its own heart, then flutters, gone, over the garden wall.

© Copyright 2008 Mai (mai_wbrooke at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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