Reason 3 to Eat Ice Cream

wc: 361                      2021

    You’re driving along a two-lane road in a rental car on your way to see some ruins. Mayan probably. An old pile of rocks is nothing you’ve ever cared about, but you’re there now and that’s what people see when they’re there, on vacation where you are, so that’s where you go. Your co-vacationers, friends or family, are passed out, their heads lolled at such aggressive angles their necks have corners. You notice bits of thin black plastic disappearing under tires, just another dirty road in a place you are lucky enough to visit, not to stay. You notice a butterfly floating in the other lane, unbothered by the traffic.

As you drive further along the road the air becomes scattered with fluttering wings. They still sit high above, obsidian and chartreuse, conversing in secret with waves and dips and twirls of their weightless bodies. Until they aren’t removed  and instead flit across the road, lifting and shaking with the onslaught of cars. Many end up dancing near your windshield, getting so close that you glimpse the lime green mosaic on their back before the wind chides them up or around you. Others appear to be stuck in space, oscillating between the sky and tarred cement, unaware of your impending, seatbelt wearing, face creased presence.

  You can see them coming and try to swerve within your lane, but you don’t dance the way they do. Inevitably some collide with you. When this happens, you hear a dull tick on the glass, like a pinky finger on a school desk, and their soft bodies bounce, disappearing into the world behind you. You try not to wince, but you can’t.  

You realize it’s not small black folds of plastic bags animating with the rush of tires. It’s limping flutters  that can’t raise themselves any higher than just below a bumper. A family member stirs and you explain the uneasiness this has brought you but they just look at you funny.

It’s just insects.

But it’s butterflies.

There’s plenty more.