Harold arrived at the front door dressed in death, the soles of his tobacco, suede hunting boots wrapped in grass and sticky mud.\u00a0 Sweat trickled down the sides of his face, leaving a trail of oily dew on his wife\u2019s memory.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Myrna shook her head in disgust, knowing the\nweekly ritual had begun. Out came the\nthumbtacks and corkboards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“So, how many flies did you catch\ntoday?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pollen infested eyes cut through her sarcasm;\nshe covered her wounds with a crochet sweater. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he laid the net down, she saw one butterfly\ntrapped inside. Its moss-brown wings lay\nlifeless like a swatch of silk that she wanted to caress and stow away for\nsafekeeping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Why must you kill something so\nbeautiful?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harold told her to hush and pinned the creature\nto its grave. “It’s just a butterfly,” he groaned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“And you’re just plain ugly,” she\nsnapped as she stomped upstairs to the bedroom. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He shrugged his shoulders and grinned, admiring\nthe specimen on display. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Myrna sat on the bed and wept, hot tears falling\nlike Summer rain. She glanced at the bedroom walls, eyeing dozens of\nbutterflies in dead repose. Their glass\ncoffins coated in dust and death. She sprinted to the bathroom, opened the\nmedicine cabinet. The bottle of sleeping pills a beacon in a sea of medication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She rushed downstairs to the kitchen and\nprepared a glass of lemonade, dropping half the bottle of sleeping pills\ninside. Hurry up and dissolve<\/em>. She\npeeked towards the living room. He was stretched out on the recliner, one hand\nlost inside his shorts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Harold, I don’t know what came over me\nearlier. You must be so tired from the\nhunt. I’ve brought you a refreshing glass of lemonade,” she smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He looked at her suspiciously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Go on. It’s not going to bite you.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He took the lemonade and quickly gulped it down.\n“Bring me another glass. You know I hate those dainty looking glasses you\ninsist on using. Bring me a man-size glass.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Of course, Harold. You just rest and I’ll\nbe back in a second.” She prepared another glass, dropped more sleeping\npills. Then, dashed back to the kitchen and waited. <\/p>\n\n\n\n An hour later, snoring emanated from the\nrecliner. Myrna knew what she had to do. With all the strength she could\nmuster, she dragged his body onto a large piece of plywood that had been hidden\nbehind the buffet for months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Out came the hammer and some nails. The sound of\npounding and screaming echoed throughout the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wiping bloodied hands on her apron, Myrna\nfrowned, then shrugged her shoulders. “Tsk. Tsk. So much for beauty. You’ve\ngot to be the ugliest butterfly I’ve ever seen. You won\u2019t do to display. My\nonly option is the basement. You can discuss beauty with the spiders and\nroaches\u2026for eternity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harold arrived at the front door dressed in death, the soles of his tobacco, suede hunting boots wrapped in grass and sticky mud.\u00a0 Sweat trickled down the sides of his face, leaving a trail of oily dew on his wife\u2019s memory.\u00a0 Myrna shook her head in disgust, knowing the weekly ritual had begun. Out came … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-uJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1905"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1907,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions\/1907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Sandy Benitez writes lyrical poetry and short fiction, sometimes dark, magical, or mysterious. Her most recent poetry chapbooks include Cherry Blossom Days and Petal Storm. \u00a0Sandy currently resides in Southern California with her husband and two children. She can be reached at https:\/\/sandysbenitez.blogspot.com<\/a> or on Goodreads. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"