Words Written on Butterflies

Tanya got out of the bed while the sun was still asleep. She looked
out the window; even the stars were lost in the dark. "Would I be able
to watch sunrise today?" she asked her heart. She knew the answer but
was afraid to tell herself. Mike, her husband was still in bed and so
were her four kids. Even their sleep couldn't elude her from doing them
service. She had to orchestrate her work to the microscopic details.
From pressing clothes to polishing shoes, finding matching socks to
arranging school bags, fixing up breakfast to preparing snack-boxes,
she was unthankfully supposed to make it all happen like a magic wand.
And to her own compulsory fault, she did it all; like a magic
wand.
Life ran like a wheel. The circle started every morning and ended up
late in the night, and then morning appeared again. There was no pause,
no rest, not even a slight curve to insert change. She condemned
herself for not experiencing even a thought of ever getting out of this
circle. She had committed herself to the orbit of life.
Coming out of the bathroom, she turned and looked at her bushed face in
the mirror and gasped a tired answer to her long asked question,
"Never, you just keep driving in the sunset." She shook her head to
wing away those rebellious butterflies in her mind. She knew she
couldn't join them so she didn't want them to hang around her
either.
She entered the kitchen hearing Mike, yelling in his drowsy voice for
the absence of his towel in the bathroom. Her youngest daughter Karen
started crying for she didn't want to go to school that day. Nicole,
the eldest, couldn't help herself but to blame Daniel for the overnight
fragmentation of her dollhouse. While Randal registered his protest
from his bed that he was not going to drink milk in breakfast like
every day. While in the kitchen, sugar had run out and the laundry
seemed to have been breeding itself. And she was still looking for that
magic wand.
She never got to know when morning ran into noon; even the clock failed
to tell her that. Mike left for office still screaming and shouting for
his towel and the school bus only arrived after the kids had put all
their stunts on the dining table. Their absence couldn't cease her work
for they left their incarnations on her day. She was comparing the pile
of her courage to that of the laundry when the doorbell rang. It had
been so long anybody coming to their home that she had forgotten what
their doorbell sounded like. She tried to guess who could it be but not
a single name intervened her thoughts. She opened the door with an
uncertain hope for a surprise from the blue but only found the postman
standing in the door to vanish that uncertainty.
"Hi David! Since when did you start ringing the doorbell?" words flew
out of her mouth with their own consent.
"Ever since I was a kid. Only that in my childhood I would ring the
bell and run away." David was one hell of a cheerful postman.
"But you don't need to run away now."
"No, not until you have signed and received you letter."
"My letter! Who could send that?"
"I am not sure, its someone named L.H.M. Sounds like a postgraduate
degree to me."
"Never mind, I'll sign it."
Tanya received the letter. It was a registered letter from within the
town. She wondered who could that L.H.M be. She opened the envelope and
the mystery that enfolded it. The handwriting sparked a memory but she
felt too overwhelmed to scrape her past. Her heartbeat started flying
on butterfly wings.
It wasn't just a letter with ordinary words written on a piece of
paper. She could feel those words fluttering over her heart. They were
telling her stories of her long lost love.
My flowered wish Tanya!
I once saw my home in the streets of your palm, my destiny in the
smiles of your promises, and my shelter in the shadows of your eyes. I
treasured all your whispers under my pillow, your fragrance in my
breaths, and your name in my ears. Your face still lightens up the sky
in the night, your voice still rhymes the rainfall, and your hair still
soften the wind.
The sun always rose from the casement of your eyes.
And then, time flew you away into someone else's world. That sun
vanished and ever since I haven't seen a sunrise.
Life is spending me and I am aging into it. Days keep climbing the
mountain of years. Moon drapes its face in the clouds and the night
refuses to bring sleep onto my pillow. I fight your memories and defeat
myself. The pain-waves of your absence storm through my stale heart and
leave it in a vortex.
Life runs like a wheel. The circle starts every morning and ends up
late in the night, and then morning appears again. There is no pause,
no rest, not even a slight curve to turn into a change.
My face has lived with me for ten cold winters, now I want to feel the
warmth of you face. Bring the sunshine of your eyes to me. Meet me
while the sun sets this Sunday at the river bridge where days use to
meet nights. My eyes will be measuring the passage until you
come.
Larry

The letter ended and left her standing at the door of her time-faded
memories. Larry was her classmate in college days. He lived her heart
and she dreamed his eyes. They had planned to get married after
graduation as soon as Larry found a good job. It took him a year to
find one and this expansion of time let Mike surface. Mike was an
elegant and handsome man with already a good job. He proposed Tanya and
she, tired of waiting for fresh air, stepped into the clouds with Mike.
Larry got a first-rate job the day Tanya got married.
In next six months, Larry left the country and Tanya moved to
Wisconsin. Life got busy in its details and Larry lived in her memory
too much that she forgot to remember him. Mike's love scattered into
his job, kids and Tanya. She did the same to him, except for the job
thing. Her job was to take care of the kids and the home. "Easier said
than done" she liked this phrase ever since. Her job imprisoned her
wishes and she couldn't even wish for her freedom.
And today, after more than ten years, a letter came into her life like
a butterfly carrying on its wings words written in rainbow colors. It
was Wednesday and she wished to jump over those three days into the
Sunday sunset.
She never got to know when the kids came back from the school and how
she spent the rest of the day. The days had started flying with her. In
the night she would read that letter to the moon, the stars and the
breeze. She would tell them stories of her love; the first time she met
Larry, her first words and her first kiss. Every inch of her memory had
a bond to a whole new memory itself. Now she remembered everything;
every ray the sun ever decanted on her love.
Life had taken a right turn on a straight highway of routines. The
orbit had finally broken. She could feel a powerful freedom that was
removing those monotonous thoughts from her mind and injecting life
into her veins. Life was wearing hope now.
The time from Sunday morning to evening was hard to spend. Time clock
was snailing out of the day and the sun got hung up in mid air. Wind
stopped on the surface of water and the shadows declined to shrink. She
wished time was a horse with a tail on the forehead and she would pull
it from its tail. She wished time was a dry leaf and she would through
it in the windstorm of her heart. She wished time was a boat and she
would sail it in the river of her eyes. But today, time that had always
been a teacher to her, had turn into a teaser. It wasn't breathing at
all, just holding its breath and teasing her more. She wanted the time
to fly and it was crawling.
She tried to make herself busy in house chores but her eyes quit
supporting her hands as they were still looking at the sun. And the sun
also kept glaring at her, all day. Finally the sun lost the battle and
started going down. From the ventilator, it had skid to the
window.
No one in the family felt any change in her. Mike had to go to meet a
client and was quite busy looking at himself and the kids were too
involved looking at the TV. It was an hour to sunset and she was ready,
wearing her best dress and wrapped in her favourite fragrance. She
surrendered a couple of years from her face and brought back a few
young smiles onto her lips.
"Where are you going dear?" her preparation couldn't wage enough
resistance against Mike's curiosity.
"Aa, well, actually I thought I would go for some shopping" she hardly
uttered.
"Mom! I would go with you." Nicole yelled as the idea of going out had
removed her attention from the TV. The rest were too absorbed they
didn't even listen the conversation.
"Yeah dear, why don't you take Nicole with you, she could be
help."
Tanya didn't feel comfortable having a company at that time but she
didn't want to change Mike's curiosity in to suspicion so she said
OK.
All the way to the city center, Nicole kept telling her of all the
stuff her friends had and what she wanted to buy in response. Tanya
wasn't listening. She was just shaking her head in approval of whatever
Nicole said. She couldn't possibly have said a word. Her heart was
rumbling like a volcano, hitting the rib cage trying to get out to take
a look at its long lost love.
The sun was hurrying down now. She was afraid of getting late so she
speeded up a little.
"Mom! Aren't we suppose to go to City Center?" Nicole asked seeing her
turning to a different street.
"Yes dear but I have to take care of something important before we go
shopping, all right?" she said.
"All right." It was OK for Nicole as long as it didn't alter their
shopping plan.
The bridge was getting closer and so was logic. Sanity had started
penetrating her enthusiasm. The question of "how should I do it?"
turned into "why should I do it?" The eclipse of her memories had
started declining. She could see the bridge now. She stopped the car a
hundred yards away from the bridge.
"Honey! You stay in the car, I'll be back in a few minutes." She said
to Nicole without a slight touch of emotions. She didn't wait for her
answer, stepped out of the car in a mechanical way and started walking
towards the bridge.
Larry was standing on the corner of the bridge, with his back to her.
He was looking down the bridge into the running water. She walked for a
few yards and then stopped. Larry turned his face towards her. Age
seemed to have worn him out. He looked tired as if he had traveled a
huge mileage of years. His presence sent no 'waves of fresh air' to
clean her heart from the mist of dissatisfaction. He disappointed her
again. She hoped to find a ray of hope and he disappointed her hope.
She looked back towards the car at her daughter. "I have too much to
lose, I don't want to lose my ten years." she decided and turned back.
Larry ran after her but she had reached her car. Larry called her with
a passionate cry, "Tanya!" She opened the door and sat in. Larry
stopped abruptly with shock struck eyes. Tanya turned the car
back.
"You are my wish Tanya!" Larry murmured. She stepped on the car. Larry
saw her going into the sunset.
"Who was he mommy?" Nicole couldn't catch any idea out of it.
"He was a nobody my dear."
Tanya kept driving into the sunset.

The End

By:
Amir Saleem