[story] Lonesome Dreams

short fiction written at Columbia Summer Camp 2022

My mom told me before she was dead, that a heart attack felt like something controlling your lung, so you could only breathe out but not breathe in. Someone with a heart attack dies painfully and slowly. The process may only cost minutes in others’ eyes, but to the patients, the time can be stretched, and it can take years. I always wanted to feel a heart attack in one of my dreams, so that I won’t be nervous if I actually get one. But I hadn’t had any dreams in months. It’s OK, other people told me, I might just forget them when I wake up.

When grass and bushes were taller than me, I wished I had the ability to jump very very high. I wished I could jump over the bushes so that I could move between places very very fast. I lived in a cylinder-shaped house, like the one SpongeBob SquarePants had, except it was not a pineapple. The house was black. It wasn’t black originally, but some people painted black oil on my house when I wasn’t home. I appreciated that they made my house new, but I never know why they’d do that. I worked far from where I live. I was a beggar. Some people begged for money, but I only begged for food. When I hadn’t eaten in days, I ate a lot. That’s probably why I feared I might have a heart attack.

My life was colorful, unlike some others. I was very talented at catching butterflies. One night before I went to sleep, my mom told me if I could catch a butterfly, hold it in my hands, and close my hands, kill it, I can become one. Since then I practices catching butterflies every day. I actually never believed it, but I wished it were true, so someday I could fly when no one sees me at night. I never killed any butterfly, but I once told my friends who were watercolor painting nature on their own canvases. They mocked me and threw their dyes at me. I wasn’t upset because I knew they believed me. The next day they all went onto the fields and forests looking for butterflies, clumsily. Now that they still hadn’t come back, I hoped they’d become what they wanted.

When would I become a butterfly?

When I came back from practice there wasn’t any food at my house like there always had. I was tired and hungry so I went to bed early. When I woke up at midnight, I was surprised looking at the changes in my body. My arms and legs were shrinking, and disproportionate wings grew and extended at my back. My vision became blurry, I wanted to move my hands, but it only resulted in the wings swinging faster and faster. Butterflies were my best friends! “I know you didn’t kill a butterfly. But you are becoming one”, mom said to me. I moved my wings faster and faster until I couldn’t stop. I flew higher and higher until I escaped earth. Without oxygen…

Out, out, out…