|
Jim and Blair belong to PetFly. The butterfly belongs to Zhuang Zhou, or was it Zhuang Zhou who belongs to the butterfly? Water buffalos just generally belong to themselves.
For Suse, whose drawing inspired this snippet.
Butterfly
|
He was a water buffalo slugging through mud, the weight of the yoke heavy on his shoulders as he plowed his way across the field, mind kept carefully blank. Something flicked at the periphery of his vision, and he turned to see a butterfly, flittering to and fro across the field, soaring high then dipping low, coming and going as it pleased. He watched, mesmerized, as it darted close, then away, then close again, and fluttered down, down, down, until it landed softly on his horn, wings folding slowly closed, then opening partway, then closed again. He held his breath and stayed absolutely still -- and suddenly he was gazing into deep blue eyes, and he was the butterfly sitting on the horn and he was the water buffalo standing in the middle of a muddy field and was he the water buffalo thinking he was a butterfly or the butterfly thinking he was a water buffalo?
Jim blinked at the sunlight pouring into the loft bedroom. The warmth of another body pressed into him, and the air was heavy with their combined scents. Smiling, he watched the sunlight dance off Blair's curls, content in the solid reality of the man beside him. |
|
|