literature

B L E A C H BUTTER F L Y text.

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Literature Text

It started when I saw the butterfly. Of course, I only really saw the butterfly after I had taken the photograph. All the other butterflies had seemed a little less certain and a little more nervous, perched on the stems and stalks of plants and flowers all around our sizeable property on the Newaygo Junction section of lake St. François Xavier. This butterfly, resting on an empty cardboard box that had once been filled with bleach, seemed at home. I began to ponder…

     Property? When and how did we start to own the earth? Home? When did the location change from a habitat to a home? It isn’t as if I hadn’t thought of these things before, but it was after seeing the butterfly that I identified them. I pinned them down, like a butterfly under glass. I hope I was a little more humane than your average collector. Humane? Why is kindness and gentle behaviour towards others called being humane? Are animals incapable of kindness? This is the sense that I’ve usually heard the word used in. If something is negative but common, we call it human, not humane. For example, what if I said that fear was only humane? Would that turn heads?

     Humans musn’t forget that we’re animals as well, no matter how many rivers and forests we tame, and the species within. We’ve taken over their world, but animals still survive and adapt. That butterfly simply was completely comfortable in its environment – it accepted the cardboard box and made it its own.
     
     No matter how rude we’ve been in keeping our end of the deal, humans have only come to a compromise with the world. We won’t be allowed to take over, so long as squirrels run on power lines and skunks roam just about anywhere.
It seems to me that we haven’t been good tenants at all. We don’t take out our trash, and we never pay our rent. We steal our roommate’s leftovers and leave our leftovers out all over the place to grow rancid and rot. Our utility bill is skyrocketing, and we leave dirt on everything we touch. As a species, we are rotten tenants. Occasionally, one of our friends will come over and try to push a little bit of order onto the madness, but it’s always too little, too late.

     That butterfly probably knew more about happiness and simple living than I ever could, happily probosciscing an unidentified orange stain on a box that had once contained what would be pure poison to an animal. Butterflies have no written history – that is, that we know of, and neither do any other animals besides humans. Butterflies have no oral tradition. So why do butterflies and other animals accept our strange constructs and buildings as normal? Instinctively, do they make sense? Do butterflies live blissfully unaware, or in abject fear?

     For hundreds of years, we’ve been depleting and plundering natural resources belonging to the world, not to us. Really, what are we if not a blip on the lifeline of the world? What gives us the right to use anything that can’t be replaced after we’ve gone? Future generations use a little more, and then just a little more, until it’s finally all gone. But, this is nothing new, and you and I both gain nothing new in reiterating a point that is a matter of course. In order to solve problems, we must identify them and at least endeavour to understand them.
Afterwards, we must attempt to solve a problem that is occuring “now”, not lay blame on what is past. This is what I would say if I were any kind of authority on the subject of climate change, natural resources, and global warming, but all that I know for sure is that in the summer, the weather is hotter than I ever remember experiencing, and it is scary.

     I have followed a lot of butterflies, and I have found that they appear to live very much in the present. “If the great lumbering human is at the plant that I am landed on, I will land on a plant three feet further along the path. If this should occur a second time, I will repeat my previous actions. Should the human still believe that it is my match, then I will fly away into the forest and return five minutes after they have departed, unlike my distant (oh, very distant, I assure you) cousin the dragonfly, which will probably land directly on the human and stay for a visit. Pardon me – I’ve just spotted a flower and I’ve decided to go stick my nose in it.”

     That last paragraph marks the 777th word. If I had any sense, I would stop there and leave this nice, nonsensical little rant right there at that heavenly number. Instead, I sally forth in order to discover the truth of my Personal Project’s theory. This picture inspired thousands of thoughts in me, and that’s the truth of it. Not all were philosophical, but I don’t remember any of them being one-word thoughts. The verdict – there is no verdict. A further thought would be that even if something is worth an equal amount (of anything), it does not mean that they are the same. The picture of a butterfly on a cardboard box is not very similar to this long and verbose diatribe, although the photo inspired this same discourse. And so, I am undecided and don’t know what I’ve proven withal.

     I will attempt to fit the last eighty-six words within this one last paragraph, and perhaps even within this one sentence (despite contrary recommendations – and I would never recommend to anyone but myself to attempt such a blatantly obvious mistake as the ultimate run-on sentence), although in truth I did not have one thousand words that fit together with any interesting or profound message (one might consider this the ultimate ramble, especially when trying to fit it all together in 1000 words).
The 1000-word text to accompany B L E A C H BUTTER F L Y, a part of my personal project.
© 2006 - 2024 meaikoh
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commonshade22's avatar
very good :)
you do raise a fair few points :nod:
somethings i am sure many people think about.
good work :)