Page 78 - The Flame

Butterflies

Only the numbing stillness—the memory of
slow breathing and the cold sound of waves.
She ran passed the empty picture
and placed the receiver down. Upon looking at frames that hung on the wall
the television set, she realized that it was still outside her room, into the
I. on and CNN was already showing replays of the old kitchen that had rust-
As Remedios sat alone in her living room, previous night’s episodes. At this, she groaned ed pots and pans hang-
she wondered why no butterflies had come to once more. Wrapping her blanket around her ing from the racks
visit her house like they usually did every year frail body, she got out of bed slouching, her and refrigerators
on the twenty-third of the month. This twenty- back looking like an arch, bent as though the stuffed with
third, however, was different. There were no heaviness of the earth had decided to put its m o n t h - o l d
butterflies. Her fingers trembled as she clutched weight upon her each and every night, never meat prod-
her bottle of Coke, beads of sweat forming on leaving. Her thin calves ached from rheumatism ucts that
the can, the insides beginning to warm. She had as she dragged her feet to the bathroom door, remained
been sitting there all day waiting, waiting for a the sound of her tattered abaca slippers rubbing s e a l e d ,
sign. Her white duster looked like a crumpled against the floor, like two ends of sandpaper be- the si-
piece of paper from her restless tugging. Her ing rubbed together. l e n t
wire-like hair was lifeless with the sleep of the The stench of mixed urine danced in the dining
morning. She was sleepless. She looked out the bathroom’s dead air. The toilet’s flush was the room,
window, distantly watching the raindrops form first part of the house to die, leaving behind t h e
like tears on the glass. It had rained earlier that only this unbearable stink as its memory. The
afternoon, and the gloom of the clouds outside floor tiles were caked with dirt that gave in to
reminded her of the day she had lost her most no amount of scrubbing. The water from the
beloved daughter exactly fifteen years ago. shower only came in pinpricks on Remedios’s
It was the mountains that took Felia away body causing her to leave the bathroom with
from her mother. They had taken a trip to a map of soapsuds on her back, and traces of
Greece together the summer she graduated shampoo still in her hair.
from college, and had fallen in love with the It was only once she was in front of the mir-
mountains at Karpenisi the moment she laid ror that the reality of time had settled in for
her eyes on them. They were covered with thick Remedios—she was no longer the beauty all
sheets of snow that fell from the sky like pieces the boys of San Juan admired in their youth.
of grated coconut. Her heart began to beat with Instead, she stared back at an old, unrecog-
the wildness of a million African drums as they nizable woman, who looked at her with eyes
neared the top of the mountains, their feet that possessed a sad glow, always watery, as
numb under layers and layers of socks. Upon though she would cry, if that meant not ruin-
reaching the top, Felia looked up to the sky ing the excessive amounts of makeup she put
and felt as though she could disappear into the on each morning. Her face had become sullen,
clouds. At that very moment, happiness was a maintained only by the religious nightly ritual
little child making angels with her in the snow, of applying expensive creams. Her cheeks were
the fluttering in her stomach, like playful arms almost nonexistent, leaving a sharp bone curve
making wings! Remedios looked at her daughter at the edges of her face. Her ears drooped with
wishing to remember her this way, to freeze Fe- the weight of sagging skin, pulled constantly by
lia like that in the frame of her mind forever—a the assortment of heavy gold earrings she never
memory in this unforgotten space. failed to wear each time she went out. Her teeth seem-
Until suddenly, the air began to thin, and in were about to fall, but she insisted on postpon- i n g l y
an instant time had stopped for the mother and ing her trips to the dentist. She sighed as she dead liv-
daughter. Remedios remembered that one final carefully tied her hair up in a bun, looking away ing space.
breath, the sound of her scream stabbing the air from the mirror as she turned off the lights. And finally,
like a knife, her hands catching the angel that She did not want to think of the happiness the squeak of
had just fallen in the snow. that once lived in that house. Though she tried the rust on the
Now, there are only candles to be lit. to relive them in her mind, her ears seemed to metal gate.
only hear the voice of her daughter, Felia and Remedios went ANGELI B. VALENZUELA
II. the constant waves of the tears that fall at night. to work.
The ringing of the phone woke Remedios up She heard only the sorrows of her heart, a griev-
from a night of troubled sleep. She looked for it ing as deep as ocean beds, as she tried to fill the III.
with her eyes still closed, immediately grabbing hole that gaped inside her, not knowing where The office was a brick
the receiver with such urgency, that the phone it was, exactly, only that it was there. Most of house across the street from where
fell nearly to the floor. The voice on the other the time, she was convinced, she had become, she lived. She had spent the past twen-
side was that of her secretary’s, reminding her in herself, a hole. ty-seven years running a family business
to wake up because her accountant had just ar- Christmas was an unspoken sadness. No with her husband and two other daughters, a
rived and was ready to start on the day’s audit- trees were put up. No presents bought for any- family she only saw five days a week, at work,
ing. She merely groaned in acknowledgement body. No more food set on the table. No more and even then they remained behind closed
laughter. No more movement. Only silence. doors, attending to their own businesses, their
own sense of cramped emptiness.
It was only a matter of moving a little clos-
78 | FLAME