Metamorphosis

Sometimes, the delphiniums appeared serene.

Grandeur gave their dimity a luminous quality, like a starched countryside diffused by an expanse of waltzing latterns' light.

They knew, but I didn't. A thread of laughter trickled to accompany the butterflies as my hand departed with a handkerchief swimming like fish weaving through sudden distortions on water.

Perhaps the omen delivered from their deities proved a true word.

But no prophecy will ever fulfill its destiny.

And nothing will penetrate the origins.

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"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly?"

"I don't have to wonder...airplanes exist, you know."

"No, I mean really fly without anything supporting you. It would feel so free, like a rebel on the verge of liberty."

"I guess. But I'd rather stay here, where I belong."

"Why? The scenery never changes...it's always those crooked beeches paired with a charred concrete backdrop."

"Well, I think it's better to be in the middle of things, not up in the heavens where everything is an illusion. Observing isn't the same as actually being there, if you know what I mean."

"Maybe. But you have to change your perspective sometime."

"It's strange doing that. Like you're betraying your precepts."

"Betraying them for the good?"

"Who knows."

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My father once explained to me that everything we see is interlaced with lines that can bind us closer or bring us farther apart. The boundaries were invisible to the naked eye, as choice can only be settled when all the excess ruffles and rosettes have been torn away.

"Remember, Kira," he would say, "that even when all the petals of a flower have wilted or drifted to distant lands, it is still beautiful."

"Beautiful?" I echoed hesitantly in a younger, naive voice. "What can be so beautiful about a twisted stem?"

"Something still lingers." He seemed to struggle to search the right words. "You just have to find it."

Now, years later, bitter secrets overcrowd the last frayed memories I have of what I had believed to be a righteous man. The bottles of alcohol strewn in dilapidated ruins across the dining room, nights awaken by air thick with shrill caterwaul, and the languorous expressions passed so frequently in day still taunt my mind with unforgettable mirages. A fraction of my childhood had been constructed with countless prostheses, some parts even worn to an empty core.

If "something still lingers", is it the dreaded memories?

But I question this conclusion often. My father was, and still is, an idol I worshipped with great respect and admiration. I could practically see through his aura; it held a diaphanous texture that gave onlookers an impression of unlimited virtue.

"Something still lingers", I suppose. And it's that I love him and he loved me back, too.

"Here I am," I murmur to the sky on this dazzling night.

As you were always here for me.ஐ