A Case of Butterflies

         Me and Russell had no reason to be outside. He chopped at a stump with the hatchet, and I, with my foot, spun the wheel on the upturned wheelbarrow. The clouds were broken and the tree shadows dripped sun. I hummed an R&B song from the radio. Russell requested that I shut the fuck up. So, I shut the fuck up. The wheel on the wheelbarrow was really spinning and with each tap of my foot my game grew more and more risky. A moment after I had this realization, my foot slipped and I smacked my shin on the rusted metal.

         I groaned.

         You okay? Russell asked, hatchet held aloft.

         Yeah, I said, rubbing my leg. I pushed the wheelbarrow over onto its side and started down the overgrown hill toward ancient rust truck. Russell chunked the hatchet into the stump and followed.

         The sun had already summited the mountains to the south and the light was coasting across the flickering blue. It had rained for eighteen days straight, so the ferns brushed water on our pants. The slope was muddy and overgrown, but we knew the way. We hadn't been down there since last summer.

         It was hardly even a truck anymore, ancient rust truck, half-sunk into the soft earth; we didn't even want to play in the rust-bucket because of the exposed seat springs. So, we just stared at the old thing, half-sunk. Russell hit it with a stick, but nothing exciting happened.  

         Bet it was some mob thing, Russell surmised. They'll just kill you and leave your truck in the woods like that.

         There's no mob here, I said, sounding harsher than intended.

         What do you mean? Why not?

         That's stupid.

         Well, where’d it come from then? Russell asked.

         I don't know, I said, but it's wasn’t the mob.

         Russell nodded. Definitely the mob. He kicked the ground. Bet if we dig around, we'll find bones.

         Bullshit, I said.

         Maybe, he said. He kicked through the layer of mud-rotten leaves, searching for some mysterious cadaver. I dug too. We didn't find any bones, however, but we did find a baby-blue suitcase buried in the bank not too far from the truck. Russell got scared right away, but his curiosity was too strong to stay away. The suitcase had been locked by time, corroded, so Russell grabbed a pointed rock and bashed at it until it popped open.

         We couldn't figure what was what for a moment, as our vision was filled by thousands of colorful, fluttering wings. We fell back onto the bank and watched countless butterflies pouring straight up from the little blue suitcase, filling the saturated shadows and flickering in bits of sun: orange, yellow, black, brown, red, grey, blue. Russell was very scared now, but I didn't notice. My eyes followed what must have been millions of butterflies in colorful butterfly clouds alongside fluffy white regular clouds.

         The morning never lasts very long.

         The case was soon empty and the butterfly clouds drifted to the north and we wandered back indoors. I went to my bedroom and opened a jar on the shelf. I felt the need to release the caterpillar therein, but, aghast, I found the caterpillar was fast asleep or despondent. I carried it outside and set it on a leaf, but it rolled right off and I lost the fuzzy little guy in a sword fern. I said I was sorry for trapping it and then losing it in the sword fern, but the caterpillar could not, as far as I could tell, grasp English, so the whole speech was inadequate. I really only apologized to the caterpillar to make myself feel better, I recognize that now, though I didn't at the time.

         We rarely recognize anything at the time.  

         It rained again in the afternoon and into the evening, and me and Russell fell asleep on the floor by the fireplace.