The sun rises high in the sky one ordinary morning. A five-year-old Sarah opens her eyes dreamily. The rays of the sun hit her tender face as if nudging her to start the day. She decides otherwise and gets off her bed to draw in the curtains when something colorful strikes her eyes. It’s a butterfly perched on the window sill with its silken, blue wings dazzling against the sunlight. Her eyes instantly light up with joy as she shouts at the top of her lungs, “Eva…..Look, a blue butterfly!”
Eva, her elder sister, is lying still on her bed in the other room. No, she is not asleep; she has in fact hardly had a wink of sleep last night. It has been the same story night after night this entire month. The bags under her eyes darken and puff with every passing day, making her look way older than her actual age of 30 years. She doesn’t care though. Beauty, joy, peace, and happiness suddenly seem irrelevant and unimportant to her now when the only man she has loved all her life, for 20 long years, is gradually fading away before her eyes. Even as her little sister shouts for her, she puts her trembling, weak hands to her ears to shut the noise. But then, Sarah’s shrill is too loud to ignore. Eva hesitantly gets off her bed and walks to her little sister’s room.
“What is it, Sarah? Why are you bringing down the house so early in the morning?”
“Look, Eva, a blue butterfly!” says an excited Sarah, pointing to the beautiful blue butterfly perched on the window sill.
Eva forces a smile on her face and takes a step to take a closer look at its sparkling blue body. Suddenly, she notices something odd about the winged creature. It is perched on the window sill as if frozen in time. The realization hits her. She turns cold and numb and looks at her sister’s radiant face. She is about to open her mouth when Sarah looks at her questioningly and asks, “But why is it so still, Eva? Is it sick…. like Peter?”
Eva’s eyes flood with tears just at the mention of her love battling for his life at the hospital. She manages to whisper a ‘yes’ to Sarah somehow. Clouds of gloom and despair overshadow little Sarah’s eyes, but not for long as she lights up immediately, and says with great confidence: “Oh well, never mind! I’ll be its doctor then, and save the butterfly!”
These brave and innocent words of Sarah rip across Eva’s heart as she takes her little sister in her arms, sobs racking her body. How could she tell her that there was no way of saving a dead butterfly? Eva, however, cannot find the strength in her already broken spirit to break her sister’s heart; so she chooses to silence the truth as she whispers softly in Sarah’s ears, “Yes, darling…you do that…you do that….,” and exits the room.
The next two days pass like a dream for Eva: Her usual rounds to the hospital in the day to be with Peter fighting against cancer, and then back home in the night to find her little sister next to the butterfly trying to nurse it back to life. Leaves, stalks, stems, and flowers lay scattered around the butterfly, wilting and untouched. Eva could guess Sarah must have collected these items from the garden hoping the butterfly would stir its still wings at the sight of food. Not a word, however, passes between the two as they lock their gazes in silence. Eva just runs her hand in Sarah’s hair as the little sister covers herself in her bosom, and they retire to bed.
Morning has dawned as usual on the third day. Eva tears herself away from her bed and readies to go to the hospital. She can, however, sense an eerie uncomfortable silence pervading the house this morning. “Sarah would usually be up to some antics by now,” she thinks to herself. She glances at the clock. It is 10 a.m. A chill runs down her spine as she rushes to her little sister’s room. She finds Sarah still sitting at the window sill with her head bowed down. Eva heaves a sigh and approaches her dear sister. As she sits next to her, she sees that the butterfly is now covered with all the leaves and flowers Sarah had collected the past two days. She understands at once that Sarah has finally realized and accepted the truth. She takes her little sister’s teary-eyed face in her palms gently and wipes off her tears even as tears roll down her own face.
“It is not coming back…,” whispers Sarah softly.
Suddenly, her little sister appears so old to Eva, just like she herself has traveled years ahead of her prime this month. Both the sisters, united in their sorrow and grief, gently lift the butterfly and release it to the wind.
