FLASH FICTION: A Butterfly Kiss

The grave is small. Smaller than she expected. ‘It should be deep,’ she thinks, ‘to hold such a big heart.’ She stares unseeingly into its depths. ‘And to bury so much love.’

She is dry-eyed, her loss unable to find expression beyond the endless, polite “thank-you’s” she murmurs to the mourners with their lachrymose glances and useless mutters.

‘You’re so young to be a widow,’ they say.

They shake their heads. ‘Sad. So sad.’ A man pats her arm with clumsy sympathy.

She wants to say something – anything – to make them feel better. But the emptiness is too wide. Far wider than the small grave in which her heart lies.

A whisper passes her ear. The brave red ribbon looped around the straw hat she wears to protect her from the summer heat has attracted a lone butterfly. Her hand drifts up to brush it away. It won’t leave and, with a stubborn flap, it alights on the brim of her hat, on her shoulder, her arm, anywhere it can touch her. Then, in its own time, it meanders away to kiss the flowers resting on top of the coffin.

There it stays. Until the first thump of soil lands in the grave and chases it away. As it leaves, she hears her beloved’s voice again.

‘I am with you,’ he whispers inside her head. ‘I will never leave you.’

Watching the butterfly float into the distant blue sky, her tears begin to fall. Some for sadness. And some for joy.