Butterfly Stories

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Skinny boys were shouting at him. They tied his wrists behind his back with wire. - Are you imperialist lackey of traitor? a boy shouted. - Yes, he beamed. I am a traitor.

They were very happy then. They'd finally found someone who was guilty.

They led him along the edge of a luminous brownish-green creek that smelled like muck. A huge crab dandled its claws in the middle, clutching at unripe twigs. It was not a beetle-shaped crab like the ones in the markets, but broad, flat and brown. Leaves and garbage were everywhere. The view vanished into stinking greenness. The trees were not especially tall or leafy, but they were everywhere. Weird structures of roots and intersecting vines like musical instruments played chords upon his heart. They led him through turnstiles of latticework roots the hue of ginger-bulbs, and it got darker and so did the stench of the creek. There was another crab, even bigger than the last, and it was eating someone's face half-sunk in the reddish-brown ooze. There was a crowd of toiling crabs, and then more barbed wire and they were there where they were supposed to be. She was looking on him full at last with that sweet soft pale smooth delicate face of hers, open and trusting, smiling — really smiling! — a pouty little smile like a kiss, her gold chain necklace coming shooting out of chin-shadow with the heart lying on her thin bluish-white blouse just above her breasts, inverted-V eyebrows seeming to question him a little as she smiled; the recognition of him took up her whole face as she sat waiting for him with that sad smile; he was hers; soon he'd be sleeping beside her forever.