virgin mary blue
In the eighth month the heaviness pressed down and floored her sometimes. She’d been to the meetings where they told of the handful of butterflies that joyfully ran through them. She had no such sensation. She felt heavy as compost, layer upon layer of dirt and vegetable mass decomposing in her gut. In the dark room she sweltered, hotter with the curtains drawn, hotter with the sheet off. All she wanted was a quiet, dark room with properly shut drapes. Delirious with fever she dreamt of the butterfly museum, her tiny hands grasping her notebook and pencil. The heat had been oppressive then too and she’d wanted to leave, to go back to the shaded picnic area and have her ice-cream. They told her it had to be hot because of the butterflies; they needed to be reminded of their tropical home. It seemed stupid to her as a child, why take something tropical and imprison it in a simulated version of nature? She had felt terrified of the displaced creatures swooping madly in their hothouse dreaming of home. Worse still was the classroom at the end, though it was cooler in here the chemical smell pervaded and the walls were lined with speared specimens. Up close she could see the alien bodies that twisted beneath the weight of their fragile wings. How could something so beautiful and frail harbour this ugly creature? And they were so blue, bluer than anything she had seen in nature, Virgin Mary blue. The women at the class had no idea what they were harbouring.