Like looking through bars, my vision obscured by my eyelashes laced in agony and despair. “The path of the butterfly is where the light comes in”. The only soothing moment like a weak breath of life that often came as whispers in the wind. Those were her words that kept replaying for ten years in my head. Lying in an enclosure of four dark walls with only a frame bar against the upper part of the north wall, the walls carried many stories no conscious mind would ever understand. But I could feel it reliving every nightmare day and night. I heard the voices, whispers and deafening silence at night.
Everyday, I would wake up to the sight of those empty faded walls, collages of filth and waste with nothing more but scratches and imprints of emotions plastered all over. In the day time, the walls would mourn and groan. Those could have only been the souls of those before me in that eerie confinement with no hope of life. The only thread of light in me was her memories.
Like my bleak vision as I lay there unclad on bare earth, I could only picture her perfect teeth when she smiled, the strands of hair on her face when she blushed from my touch, and the sound of her melodious laughter that echoed miles away.
The night of the attack always brought a chill and halt to my beautiful memories of her. Even with the dying strength in me, an animosity still very alien to me would conjure up in my spirit. I would have done it over and over again just to protect her. I would still drive a knife to the heart of that bloody rapist. Even if I have to be locked up forever in my next life. No one dared to touch my precious Rosy.
Tossing on my own waste with barely enough strength to smash the ants and roaches gallivanting on the bones that were left of me, I saw it with the corner of my eyes. A white butterfly. It fluttered effortlessly towards my middle finger. It felt so soft and warm like my Rosy and it was the most peace I ever felt in my entire life. It came from the frame bar and I could see a tiny beam of light through the bars. Like a thread leaving the hole of a needle, the last thread of light in me ascended with the butterfly.