“Just write, boy! Just write!” shouted the old man and disappeared out of sight when the boy closed the book.
“Foolish old man,” the boy sighed while he was putting his book in his backpack. “Just, write he said as if it was that easy.”
The boy knew it was, but like a kid learning to swim he was scared of the depth. The depth of his own mind.
The boy’s name was Horatio and he wasn’t really a boy anymore. He just turned 21, two days ago. But in the eyes of a man who has seen almost ninety years, he was surely not more than a kid.
Many years ago Horatio was tasked to write about his favorite animal for school. He had picked a butterfly, not because he liked them so much but because his cat had brought him a dead one just as he was sitting down for his assignment.
“Maybe that’s a sign,” he thought and began to write: “My favorite animal is a butterfly. I like butterflies because…”
He was thinking hard about why he liked butterflies. “They are pretty and they can fly. And they can…”
Starring at the dead butterfly, Horatio realized that he had never looked at a butterfly up close. “All you usually notice are the wings. Yes, the wings are pretty, but the rest?” he took a magnifying glass and inspected the insect. He saw the very long, thin legs, it’s weird rolled up tongue, starred at the eyes and antennae and suddenly he felt sick. Very sick.
“How can something everybody thinks is beautiful be so ugly up close?” he wondered to himself.
Right then he could not put it into words, but the truth would slowly seep into his consciousness. The truth that there is no beauty in the world without ugliness. There was no joy without pain. No beginning without end, no life without death.
“I should choose another animal,” he whispered to himself. His cat mistook that for an invitation to jump on his lap. “They are all going to write about their cats and dogs, bunnies and hamsters, guinea pigs and parakeets. I need to come up with something better.” Horatio thought while he carefully placed the dead butterfly next to his water glass in the far right corner of his desk.
After pondering over his choices for over 15 minutes, all he could think of were rats. “Everybody thinks they are ugly, and not that I like them much, but I think they have pretty eyes and I like how they hold their food with their little paws when they eat. They are more like hamsters with long, fat tails.”
Suddenly he got very mad. He could long be done with this stupid assignment. “Stupid butterfly, stupid cat!” he shouted while he jumped up much to the surprise of his cat, who right after she landed, darted through the door. Then he took the butterfly and tossed it into the trash. Still upset he sat down and started to write:
“I love butterflies because they are the only animals I know that die twice. Most people think they are pretty. Others think they symbolize the hope for the afterlife. That is all nonsense. When you look closer at a butterfly, you will notice how ugly they are, just like most pretty people. There is no hope. The butterfly just dies twice. That is all. It is merely a mirror of our lives. We strive to be admired by others while there is nothing to praise. We hope to live forever, while we are born dead on the inside, just waiting to die from the outside as well.”
[Day 4 | 617 words]