Down on the beach, Mister Rainbow was sitting under a palm tree, looking out to sea. A child came up to him.
— Hello, my name is Quentin, and I would like to ask you an important question.
—
...
[+]
When the butterfly egg settled upon the underside of a milkweed leaf, the winds across the North American prairies still carried the lingering chill of Canada. I could almost smell the scent of pine needles and sunlight from my ancestors.
They said: "Fly south, ever southward, where warmth awaits to shield you through winter." Back then, I knew neither how to fly nor the biting chill of winter. I only knew this command was etched into every vein of my unborn wings, awaiting my promise.
***
Lina was stepping into the stirrup to mount Lucy's back. Martha held her arm firmly, "Lucy's steady, but the path up the hill is steep, so take it slow."
Lina took the reins from Martha. She recalled her first attempts at riding a bicycle as a child, when her mother told her to take it slow. She never heard those words again, from her desk in a southern town to university in the north, then across the ocean to Silicon Valley's office towers, her path grew steeper and steeper. She panicked, she fell, but she never dared to slow down.
"You came from the north?" Martha's black horse trotted ahead, its horseshoes clattering over pebbles.
"Yeah," Lina's gaze drifted to the hazy mountains, "San Francisco."
"That's a long way off," Martha chuckled, "Like a Monarch Butterfly flying all the way from Canada—it'd take crossing several states."
"They flew all the way from Canada to Mexico?"
"Indeed. You didn't know that after crossing several states to see the butterflies? By the time they reach the Butterfly Valley here, they're already third or fourth generation migrants. Generation after generation flies south to overwinter, then returns home in spring. Now is when they're preparing to journey back."
Lina nodded—she'd done no research, just desperately needed a post-resignation destination, and anyone would work for her.
As I soared above the city, the cold reflections of the glass curtain walls disrupted my vision. I often crashed into office windows, encountering weary people slumped over their desks napping, with square-shaped 'moons' flickering blue in front of them.
I'm not sure if those 'moons' are also guiding their journey.
***
Lucy panted, nostrils flaring. "The fog is too thick. We might miss their take off," Martha wiped her forehead, "Sometimes we wait all day for nothing."
Lina replied, "It's okay." She wanted to pull out her phone to book a hotel and adjust her plans, but the phone in her pocket pressed hard against her waist, rigid and unbending. It took considerable effort to extract it, yet she hesitated to turn it on.
Once again, she was trapped in those inescapable thoughts: Should I expose it? The dangerous file in her phone was proof of the company's deliberate cover-up of violations and lies, and the very reason Lina had walked away from her career.
"Expose it, nothing will be ruined except for your own life."
"So many people have worked here for years without incident, why you of all people?"
"Trying to be a hero? You're nothing but a clown."
A sudden sense of tension stopped Lucy. Lina gripped the reins tightly, taking deep breaths to calm herself, as if letting go would send her tumbling off a cliff.
Then a flash of orange light streaked past the horse's hooves.
A dazzling orange. Lina dismounted quickly—it was a butterfly, mud-streaked wings, abdomen trembling but unyielding.
"Spring's almost there, but it didn't make it," Martha whispered, crouching.
Lina cradled the butterfly and gently placed it at the base of an oyamel fir—a sheltered spot where thick grass shielded it from the mist.
"It's all right now. There's nothing to be afraid of," She whispered.
We finally reached that place—slopes blanketed in oyamels, but the cold snap came. Wind lashed down, knocking me violently to the ground. I realized that the wind could lift me to the clouds, and just as easily tear me apart.
I braced for death, but it never came. A warm 'branch' gently lifted me.
***
"Ten more minutes, we'll go if the sun doesn't come," Lina nodded, following Martha up the mountain with lighter steps than before.
"Why did the butterflies fly so far?" Lina asked suddenly. "How could they risk everything for a place they've never been to?"
Martha pondered for a moment. "They're born knowing this path, I suppose. No matter the distance, no matter the cold, they must walk it. People are sometimes the same. Once you've set your mind on something, you wait, you keep walking, and eventually, you'll see the light."
But what if dawn never breaks? Lina didn't manage to ask.
Before her emotions could overwhelm her, she finally pulled out her phone. The moment she pressed the power button, messages flooded in like a tidal wave: from her former boss, whose tone had shifted from "Come back, your position is still open" to "Think carefully, don't regret it"; from colleagues asking "How have you been lately?"; and several unfamiliar numbers labelled "Journalist", stating "We'd like to speak with you about the previous matter."
I saw sunlight dripping onto my wings, but I didn't know when or how. I heard the familiar sound—the flapping of my companions' wings. Closer and closer, denser and denser, they swept over the gravel path like a tide, rustling with a particular vigour.
I tried to flap my wings. I felt myself flying again, heading towards the light, flying back to the place where I belong. I knew nothing but flying.
***
The phone kept vibrating in Lina's palm. The annoying points of light hopping around in the haze made her eyes feel dizzy; the messages felt like tangled threads, one end knotted to past anxieties, the other tugging at decisions left undone, leaving her struggling in the middle.
The vibration suddenly changed pitch.
Lina lowered her head. The messages on the screen had almost stopped popping up, but the vibration grew louder and louder, a crackling sound not from her palm, but from behind her ear. She suspected it was a hallucination caused by days of insomnia.
"Listen, did you hear that?" Martha's voice seemed to come from afar.
Lina abruptly lifted her head. Light flickered in her sight, Monarch Butterflies, one, two, and then more and more. Orange spots rose from the branches. Hundreds, thousands of butterflies flapped their wings, linking themselves together to weave secret patterns. The buzzing of the wings drowned out the faint vibration of her phone in her palm. Gentle as falling leaves, warm as raindrops, yet they possessed the power to shake the heavens. This power surged from the treetops, drifting with the wind, gently enveloping her.
She could hear nothing but the sound of butterfly wings fluttering and her fluttering heart.
Lina was merely staring at the butterflies. They flew not swiftly, but steadily, having endured winter's chill and pushed through the mist, finally able to soar towards spring. The butterflies were all around her, as if she, too, were fluttering her wings in this orange-yellow breeze.
As if she soared across several states, carried by her parents' support, to reach her promised land.
As if she had endured a journey where she risked everything, traveling day and night.
As if she had her wings broken and was knocked down, yet still refused to admit defeat.
As if she dared to fly back to her spring, to start anew at the beginning.
Millions of butterflies lifted the fog. Lina saw her way with clarity.
"Yes, I heard them. I heard wings that dare to soar. I bet they can stir up a storm."