Butterfly Stories

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But that wasn't the end, either, because in the morning, ' very early, there was a tapping at the door, and when he got up sick and fat and groggy in his underwear to see who it was he still didn't know; he opened the door and shouted VANNA! with glee and thankfulness and she was glowing at him; she'd brought loaves of bread for his journey; he shared one with her; the photographer, who'd passed out puking on the floor, lay feverish in bed; and the journalist opened the refrigerator door where the photographer had left his fruit to be abandoned and gave it to her, a gift for a gift, and she smiled and took it so that it became something special; lying in bed beside him she peeled a fruit somewhat like a giant grapefruit, each sector of it walled off by a bitter cuticle as thick as a flower petal, the reward inside being a mass of rubbery pale yellow teardrop-shaped fibers with bittersweet juice; and she put the segments into his mouth, and she said: I wuff you -

THE END