Animals: “Damage” by Melissa Nunez
Damage
“[Recovery] allows us to hold a vision of humankind and the world we live in that is beautiful and full of possibilities far bigger even than the whole weight [of] our histories.” - Aurora Levins Morales, “False Memories: Trauma and Liberation”
My children accompany me on a visit to the local butterfly center. They came begrudgingly and are already complaining about having to be sprayed for multitude mosquitos on the attack and the fire ants we have had to elude—sidestepping near-volcanic nests, circumventing discharged cavalcades—just outside the visitor center door. But when we finally step from pavement to plant-lined trail, amidst the flowered foliage and those hovering in harvest of nectar, they are calmed. As if in walking past purple sage and frostweed, through trellises draped in climbing milkweed, we have entered not a garden for butterflies but that of the fey.
At our approach of the flower beds, the butterflies take to the air in a most elegant agitation. A swift-swirling seesaw balance of those lifting off and those landing. Amid the flit and flurry of wings dancing distant, I am drawn to an oddity of motion. An inconsistency as to communicate a ripple at glamoured seam. There is one butterfly marked of indecision, that doesn’t seem to want to stay put, yet in all its maneuvers never manages effective departure. It spins circles between periwinkle-blue blossoms like a whirligig, collides with flower like a kite that can’t catch wind. As we draw nearer, I observe the abdomen jutting out at awkward angle. Not streamlined with thorax but protruding like receptacle of cone flower. An accusatory finger, except I am unsure of who has done what wrong. It does not leave, no matter how close we get.
And now I see this butterfly is lashed in place by web of spider, most likely an orb weaver that laid its gossamer line well, across the surface of several mistflowers beloved by pollinators. It is a queen butterfly, one of many mock monarchs, similar in orange-and-black patterning, slightly smaller in size. The butterfly’s right wing is incomplete, crumbled away at the bottom as if it were a thin cracker someone has sampled and then discarded. Some scrimps of scales shiver upthread, and through them you can see how it has fought, detaching itself in pieces lost, offered in oblation of unbinding.
My daughter implores me to save it, and so I reach my hand towards the damaged creature. Try to avoid making full contact with its jittering body, pulling up and away but moving only around and back down to fettering flower. I am able to snap one and then two, three shackle strands, moving my hand in gentle circumference of its form to ensure clean removal.
The butterfly is now free and tries to lift off only to crash back to blossoms as if compelled to further collection. Its attempts to fly feeble fits of propulsion that nevertheless leave it grounded. It remains fixed to flower, at resigned rest, opening and closing its now unmirrored wings. My daughter worries that even with this rescue it will be doomed to death by capture—if not by spider, by dragonfly or bird. At least it is near the flora, food source and some semblance of shelter.
After several minutes, the butterfly lifts off again. It is unsteady in its motion at the start, but this time it floats higher and higher, up and away, fully flying, delivered from decisive dark destiny despite the damage. Even with a quarter of one wing gone, it has adjusted to this new reality and continues on. We follow with our eyes until it enters streak of sunlight—glinting—and in protective blink its path vanishes. And we continue on, to see what more there is to find.
About Melissa Nunez
Melissa Nunez lives and creates in the caffeinated spaces between awake and dreaming. She makes her home in the Rio Grande Valley region of South Texas, where she enjoys observing, exploring, and photographing the local wild with her homeschooling family. She writes an anime column at The Daily Drunk Mag and is a prose reader for Moss Puppy Mag. She is also a staff writer for Alebrijes Review and Yellow Arrow Publishing. You can follow her on Twitter: @MelissaKNunez.