It was like shipping butterflies to Buffalo in the wintertime. You know they wouldn't all make it, but your money is in the freight, no matter how fragile. It gets delivered. No matter the outcome. It was none of your business. You're business is in the delivery. You need the dough, and they're going to die anyhow. Short lifespans...
So who's to say what the difference of a few days or a few degrees makes in their lives?
But it's a lifetime, nonetheless, snubbed out before it's time. Or is it finally just due and finite?
Is it yours, or mine, to say?
So there I was with a basket of butterflies headed north. The basket was bequeathed. More to the point, the butterflies were bequeathed. Bequeathed to a humorless, melancholy, old matron, with no sense they were coming.
It was his wish...his wish that I “set them free in the midst of her moldy, miserable, little apartment... and leave. Just leave...”
It was his joke. Whether it was either sick, sweet, or twisted, and I've battled with each.
Savannah to Buffalo on the slow train.
Stopping....at......every..........stop.....along....the....way.
I wondered how many I would lose. If I had the caboose, I had a chance, with a potbelly stove, but no.
Would this be some kind of futile reckoning? Would I arrive with a basket of dismembered bodies? Wings turned ashen, and bodies, mere speckles of dust. And what do I do then? Scatter dead butterfly parts, yell 'be free!”, collect my money, then flee? That seems a mean trick, no matter how irascible the old biddy.
Once we left the station in the dead of night, I tried to stay alert, but I fell asleep quickly. It was the monotonous 'chugga-chugga' and the click-clack in the rails..., and the soft trill of butterfly wings.
I slept for several hours, with no intention of doing so. But regardless of intention, I awoke to the sun's glare, staring at an open basket on the compartment's floor. More so, the butterflies were free.
Flitting about the compartment at will. Here, there, overhead, and under seats, everywhere.
It was then that the conductor came around to collect tickets, and you can imagine the panic when slid the door,
Me: “No! Can't you see? We can't possibly...”
He: “But sir, I need your ticket, and passengers will be boarding at the next stop, and frankly speaking, we
don't have much room...and the room we possess must consider as 'humans-over-butterflies:" !
M: Can't you see my predicament? If I open this door...you'll have butterflies, roof to floor.
H: You have precisely ten minutes until we arrive at Porter. Best be putting it to good use and get busy.
Then the conductor went about his ticket-collecting-business, but his ticket was punched if he didn't deliver the goods. All would be for naught, and damn, did he need the money.
When the conductor returned, he slid the door ajar with gusto, and out flew the last ten or so. Most were swept out the narrow corridor windows, which were left open for the air. From there, who knows who made it, and I was too weary to give chase to those few that remained.
Forget it, who is going to miss them...
As for the rest, Thank God I wore a cap and was able to cup the bulk of them. I was grateful for who I had.
You did well to get with what you got through."
I suppose I did, but why did I feel responsible?
