The withering of butterflies

by Lise

I don't speak.

I haven't spoken in a lifetime and a half.

Well, a shift and a half, but since shifts melt away like lives and lifetimes -- take a knife and skin an onion and you cry, see a shift skin away a life and you cry, ever notice that? -- let's call it a lifetime and a half.

I could speak, but the only person who I have to talk to... he can't see me. I can't let him see me, can't make him see me, without my voice, and so I stay silent.

He is using all of his concentration to duck the swarms of locusts eating through his cover. The little green bugs are the latest denizens of this city. This lifetime, insects rule the earth, eating their way through all the crops, and all the trees, and all the life they find.

They don't see me, out here in the water. Neither does he.

I don't think he would want to see me anyway. Except for those demon eyes being missing, he's still a beautiful man. So very, very beautiful. I never thought I'd miss LeBeau's eyes, but I never thought I'd be trying to drown myself in an ocean that glows with a red, pale light either.

A lot of things are unexpected, though, aren't they?

The beetles are the things I'm going to remember most about this place, this time. There isn't any desert -- sand dunes in their little piles, counting away the lifetimes -- though it feels like there should be, with all the scarabs around. They were the most brilliant shade of sapphire blue, crawling around on their six legs like they owned the place.

I guess they did.

He did fine against them, just like he did fine against the other swarms -- of gnats, and larvae so esoteric I didn't recognize them for days of trying. And cockroaches everywhere. I guess it's true what they say about those disgusting things. They'll survive a nuclear blast, the fallout, and the thousand years after that. It must be those shiny brown cases they carry around.

But he isn't thriving with all his six-legged friends, I wager. He never was fond of bugs.

I don't know why I stick around him, in the shadows, except that I feel sorry for him in my own way. He lost his eyes, and I want to watch out for him. I can do that almost as good out here as I could when I was still sleeping beside him every night, our naked skin wrapped around us like blankets. I can see him, wanting to cry desperately, rubbing those phantom eyes that tickle his face with tears he only imagines are falling.

Something physiological with the shift that took his eyes made it so he can't cry.... but then, neither can I.

I can't do a lot of things, but let's not get into that. It makes me feel so exposed.

It's better in the shadows -- I don't have to face him directly. And it's not like he wants to see me anymore. I'm not beautiful. I don't even shine like the blue beetles crawling away down the beach.

I used to be beautiful, I think. I had a beguiling smile -- a lover with white, feathery wings told me that once, right before he made love to me. I loved him, with all my heart and all my soul. I love the ghost that wanders this desolate place too, in my own way; he used to love my eyes. I had pools of black, dark, mysterious liquid for eyes. I used to make men drool with a flip of my long, silky hair.

I'm bald now, did you know? It's sad. I miss my hair.

I miss a lot of things.

Poor Betsy, you're thinking. She's gone and gotten all ugly, in a shift that turned her entire body red and skinny, just like the slash on my face used to be. More like poor Penny; I met her just two lives ago. It was an odd mirror image of me. I could be her twin; all red except for a streak of soft peach down one cheek. That's me.

But enough whining.

The locusts have passed, finally, moving onto greener pastures with more pickings. I'm sure there are bodies piled up out there somewhere, there always are, so they should have plenty to eat. Back when things were normal, we were afraid of insects. I wonder if anyone understood them; that they, the tiny monsters, would be our legacy after we were gone.

I don't know why I don't speak to him. He can't see this monstrosity that I am.

I could always see the monster in Remy. Could he see the monster in me?

The monster than I am now, to his blind eyes, is more disguised than those demons of the past ever could be. I don't call him Oedipus, and I never called his daughter Antigone, but it was there, well enough. I might not be his mother, but--

I don't want to touch those things. Greek gods non-withstanding, fate isn't something you tempt.

Though I'm trying to drown myself, in the face of all evidence that it's not working.

I'm hemmed in by the shadows of the mountains in front of me, and the shore, and the blood red tides, and I wonder, why do I never get the chance to avoid blood? The peaks don't glow pink, at least, and though I can imagine the trek down them, carrying stone tablets with the rules of the universe--

The universe doesn't really have any rules, anymore, does it? And those aren't the peaks of Sinai.

I sink under the water again, and imagine I taste salt when I inhale.

Some time passes, and I surface.

Since I can't seem to drown, I'm swimming, and the water is cool and refreshing. The ripples lap softly against me, and the sound is gentle. It's poison, perhaps mercury laced, and has a reddish tinge to it. It counteracts the poison in my skin, and I smile. I'm happy to be enjoying the water again.

Even though this is more the color of blood, I've missed swimming.

Right now, it's the only place to escape from the bugs. The water, and whatever nook Remy's wedged himself into. How strange -- with all the people gone, it's the insects that flourish.

Perhaps not so strange, after all.

Farther off, the swarming fills the sky and blots out the sun for a moment. I think of the twelve plagues of Egypt, and chuckle softly. A man named En Sabah Nur is the new Prince, and the burning bushes all talk to him with words of power and wisdom and chaos.

And I bet he goes barefoot, too.

In that moment, I miss Remy more than I ever will. I have no one to share this private joke with; no one to whisper with about my religious epiphany, or have him say it's going to be okay. It's not going to be okay, not even for an instant.

Remy's nothing like Moses, with his distinct lack of eyes and a bo -- not wooden -- staff. We don't have the vision to see the path to the Promised Land, if there even is an oasis like that anymore. Neither of us have the power of God in us.

We aren't in Israel, and the coffee beans of the Pacific Northwest will not grow into a magic beanstalk. I guess it's the climate here.

The living cloud moves off farther into the distance, and the faint buzzing in my ears should be getting fainter. It's not.

This means the world is changing again, doesn't it?

The twelve plagues of Egypt. I chuckle again, and squint in his direction. The buzzing is staying at a constant level -- the zone is off-shore, and seems happy to stay that way. I make my way to land slowly, soak up the not-quite-water.

I'd better check on him, and step on some cockroaches for dinner.

I touched my skin to a butterfly after I changed, wanting to hold something beautiful, if only for a second. It withered away. I can't help but want to touch beauty -- none of us can. We want to grasp it in skinny fingers, clench it tightly lest if fly away on us. The poor thing was so pretty, and delicate, and it just curled up to die.

I'm so glad I found it before I found him again. Just think if I'd kissed him.

I think I'm poisonous.

I think I'm in pain.

I can see the shore, lapping up gently onto the deathly still water, and the shimmer on the horizon that signals a stationary shift. It almost looks like the haze from a deserted road, smoking and sweltering in the summer sunshine.

I wonder if I still tan?

I like being hypnotized like this.

I ache, too, inside and out. I want to go to him, and hold him, because he was all I had left. Even that's been taken away from me now, and I'm pissed off at the world. I would up and kill myself, to make it stop, but I don't want him to get hurt... and as long as he can't see, someone needs to watch over him.

I am a shepherd, now, and he bleats for no one but me.

The water is cold and clear, and as I float on my back, I stare at the shimmer, the faint line of the horizon that doesn't quite stay still. Somewhere, a little ways off, Remy is huddled against the creepy-crawlies. I can hear him, in my mind, and his guilt is multiplying tonight.

I think he might even miss me.

Maybe some day, I'll go to him, and let him touch my one cheek, and close my eyes, and we'll handle it again. I want to hold his beauty in the palm of my hand, clench him to my breasts again, and feel fierce, alive.

But to want, is to hope. To hope is to die, in this place. I've seen it enough, and I came to terms with how life was without hope. I was almost happy again, knowing death was intimate with each and every one of us survivors.

Maybe some day, I'll die.

Maybe someday, he'll die.

I know he's safe, for now. We've got a measure of safety, and a measure of anonymity, and no one else has come to disturb our silence. As long as I can feel him in my mind, he's alright. There aren't any vultures, and there aren't any miracles, but he's not first-born -- and his precious one has already been taken. We forgot to put our blood over our door, shedding it like normal people... and something took his baby.

Maybe we just didn't bleed enough. But either way, she's dead, and we're alright.

... well, none of us are alright, but he's alive.

Not withering away.

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