Originally written September 1, at 3 p.m.

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Tranquil. That’s how I’d describe the moment. But not a good type of tranquility: it isn’t the kind that simply drowns out the background noise and let’s you get lost in your own thoughts; it’s not the kind that soothes every nerve to the point of ecstasy. This tranquility is almost superficial. It is what is imposed on you by the elements – by circumstance.

It is the dead calm of the day. It is the single and distant bird whistle or squawk. It is the all-too-audible humming of some machine. It is the lonesome white butterfly making its way through the wind, seemingly lost. The sky torments me: the dead, grey lump above me that threatens me with a deluge, but dares not move a muscle. It doesn’t even breathe hard, for the trees don’t dance. A few shake their leaves slowly, almost like a nervous wave, but they don’t move like in times of life: when you feel alive in Her Bosom. No. Now, they just wave stealthily, as if hiding.

But from what? Perhaps from the same thing that everyone else seems to be hiding from, whatever it may be. This desolate place speaks loudly enough. The lonesome and lost white butterfly reflects this place – this moment in time, which is naught but confusing and lost: it glides back the other way now, flapping its tiny wings in the opposite direction, hoping – really hoping – to finally find its way…a path. But she’s blossomed already; she flies with full confidence, even in the face of error, for she knows to always search. Not the rest. Not these larvae, still cocooned in their homes, fearful of the dead calm outside their doors. Like me, they mourn this tranquility, but they fear it to the point of death and paralysis. They dare not storm the beaches; to come out of their vessels – of their cocoons. They remain larvae. But my Wings Are Tearing Skin.

And, as they say, that a butterfly’s wings in one place births a hurricane in another, so has my metamorphosis begun. The skies are parting and the oceans’ reflection begins to emerge. Somewhere, the sun shines, for change is inevitable. Evolution never stops. Still lost and nervous — “dizzy and unable to stand on my own” — but flying. My wings move to the tune and winds of the “Great Magnet” — to wherever it may lead. Avoid the wasps along the way by manoeuvring skillfully: the white butterfly glides, flies, weaves in and out; she knows to survive to see the Ocean in all its glory: gleaming under the twilight.

Alas! Wings are Truly Earned!