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writings


Cruel World


I am thinking about butterflies. Monarchs in particular…. When I was a child my grandfather would re-tar or re-blacktop the driveway. It was kind of exciting because everything is exciting when you are a kid. The driveway was completely shiny and smelly and sticky. I would sit around the edge and dare to poke at it with my bare finger. If any actually stuck I would quickly wipe off my hand in the grass because my grandparents wouldn’t appreciate it if I had come in the house with tar all over me and I can’t say I was all too fond of tar if you know what I mean. My grandparents would tell me stories about the old days when people would get in trouble and a mob of angry citizens would tar and feather somebody. “Tar and feather! Like dump hot tar on someone and grab them and roll them in feathers like real bird feathers and laugh at them!!!.” I would cry, and my grandma would say, “Sure, they would do that all the time, and even if you took a bath you still couldn’t get it off.” This of course terrified me and I kept thinking of the innocent few that got wrongly convicted and had to suffer the torture and humiliation of the unthinkable TAR AND FEATHERS. Well anyway this is where the monarchs come in. Monarchs are few and far between these days, they are almost extinct. When I was a child monarchs were everywhere and I would chase them around like a cat chases a piece of string. I especially loved it when one would land on my arm or the top of my head. “Wow, they must like me!” I would think to myself.


Well one summer, as usual, my grandpa had the driveway re-tarred and I was watching the ants and various bugs running around the perimeter trying to avoid the ominous tar pit from hell. I noticed a monarch flying above and I thought, “Surely it wouldn’t be dumb enough to land on the driveway!” “Get out of here!” I cried, but it was too late. The monarch was stuck four or five feet in from the edge and there was no way I could free him. Before I had time to contemplate his doom another one landed right next to him. But before I could react another and another landed in formation. I turned towards the sky and it was raining butterflies. There were thousands if not millions spilling in from overhead. The driveway was becoming the graveyard for hundreds of them. The ones that I could reach were so completely stuck that as I tugged on their wings their bodies ripped in half. I was horrified. I was the one killing them now. My grandfather came outside and said they were migrating down south and we just happened to be in their path. I prayed that as the tar dried it would release at least some of the monarchs, maybe they could eventually un stick themselves and join up with their friends latter. About an hour or so had passed and the driveway was still covered with monarchs and the only difference was that now they weren’t moving their wings at all, they were all dead. I asked GOD how all this could happen and I got no reply. That evening it started to rain and I hoped that would wash them away so I didn’t have to see them the next day but of course it didn’t work…… they were still there.


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