[original] Chasing Butterflies
Chasing Butterflies
Original
no warnings
You’re a little boy, chasing a butterfly (a manly butterfly, because you’re a little boy, and you can’t be going around chasing girly butterflies). All the other boys on the playground have taken a break from their game of Run-Around-Screaming-And-See-How-Long-It-Takes-For-Mrs.-Martin-To-Come and are now playing My-Dad-Is-Better-Than-Your-Dad.
My dad could beat up your dad.
My dad’s a black belt.
My dad’s a double black belt.
My dad’s a triple black belt.
My dad can wiggle his ears!
The rest of them groan and admit defeat, because everyone knows that even a million kabillion degree black belt can’t trump wiggling your ears.
What can your dad do?
You blink, because you weren’t really paying all that much attention. You’re a kid, and your attention span is like six seconds, and that butterfly is seriously distracting. It takes you some time to realize that they’re talking to you, and you stare at them blankly, still blinking.
So, what can your dad do?
You’re still staring at them, except now you’re crying, and there are tears streaming down your face, and it’s definitely not cool for boys to cry, and your sight is so blurry that you can’t see the butterfly anymore, and you can’t do anything but run. So you do, you run and run and run. And Mrs. Martin is calling for you, chasing after you in that big yellow dress that makes her looks like a school bus, but you don’t even notice.
You run, run, run all the way home.
And when you bang on the door and yell for your mom to open up, she does. She looks down at you, her make-up half on and her hair half done, and you hug her around the legs and ask her
What can my dad do?
She only shakes her head, and you think she’s crying too, and she says
Don’t worry about it, honey,
And it makes you angry, because you’d rather have a dad that can’t do anything than a dad you don’t know.