A boy is born. Happy and carefree. He lives this morning, with mother and father who dote and smile. They take him home, a happy home, and do cherish all the while.

A boy is learning, as he crawls. A land of giants and mountains before him lay, with blocks as tall as skyscrapers, and boxes like dampen caves.

A boy is in the wrong. A lie has sprung from unknown depths. For the first time, the truth was held at bay, by the gentle whisper, in his ear, of promise to be made.

A boy has become a man. A rowdy age, a rowdy heart. Doors open, and they close. What lies beyond, he concerns of not; the present, however, more so. Happy mother, happy father, wait anxiously to the side. Older now, much wiser now, they fear they have lost their boy.

A man sees desire, knocking at his door. College has surprised him, with its almighty knowing roar. A place he finds much different, than his previous schooling bores. Opportunity seems to shout from every corner of the halls. Women here, parties here, drink here; all signs that fulfill some want. He spends and whiles the nights away, living for himself alone. Across great distance, a worried mother sits patiently by the kitchen phone. With whitening hair and withering lips, time seems to all but fly. A son’s neglect, and age’s wreck weighs heavily on her soul.

A man is moving, out for good. With intelligence and wit, all as it should; He waves farewell, the ribbon-tied diploma held loosely in hand. Sad mother, sad father, wave as well. Their faces are haggard with nostalgia and age, but the man takes no notice of the timely wage. They send off wishes and promises and luck, but unease is deep within them, hidden and stuck. They question themselves, they question their plight. Does that boy know what is wrong from right? But the time is gone, the moment is past, and soon the man has left, both his mom, and his dad.

A man is quiet. A man is still. His home is silent, as a grave. The clamored dorms of college life, the laughs and drinks and carnal delights; have given way to something new. A lonely life, of silence, of dark. No mother, or father, or girlfriend tart. He tries the phone, a voice, a friend he wants to hear. Some being who cared or thought him dear, but no number comes to mind. With mounting, crushing, awful fear; the man realizes that, for the very last time, all his friends have disappeared.

A man is working, his life now mundane. The papers and forms, the coffee at noon, and even Ted, the accountant from room two. Reality hurts, when it’s least expected, and adventure seems silly and leaves him dejected. The fact is there are no great stories to see. No fires or heroics or boys stuck in wells. Life is as dull as you’ve always heard tell. Time passes on, like a monotone bell.

A man is kneeling, for something has happened. Things left unsaid, in his head there are filled. With flowers and tears, he spilled them all out. To a mother, and father, who listen, six feet below town.

A man is older, as he watches the youth. Sitting, squatting, alone on his stoop. The children pass by, with vigor and life, while the man thinks of them petty and trite. Age has given him perspective and knowledge, but towards the new, he will never acknowledge. With all the techno-whozits and gizmo-whatsits the kids now have, jealousy creeps up like a cold, ancient hand. He yells and he curses, he whines and he groans, but the man is no longer young, no matter how much he wishes it so.

An old man sleeps the day away, his
bed to become an eventual grave. His tired eyes flutter, pale and wrinkled, and a mottled hand reaches to rub the creases on his face. A dark shadow looms in his eyes, the deadness in his gaze snuffing out the light of the space. A waste, he thinks, a waste of it all. No fortune, no lover, no daughter or son. No mansion, or car, or big trophy gun. Just a man in his bed, alone in a room. A silence descends. Then a moment or two. A flash by the window, a flash of bright blue. The old man looks over and observes the new view. Through a crack in the sill, just barely in sight, a lone butterfly is basking in light. .

A butterfly is living, a quiet little life. It breathes and it quivers, alone. It flutters its colorful wings, a creature more delicate than glass, and peers at the edge of an old man’s window brass. It sighs and it shivers. It scuttles alight. And then, like that! It takes off towards great heights. Like a cheeky star, it winks out of sight, and the old man is left puzzling well into the night.

An old man smiles, with knowing coy. Like a child who had just found, his favorite toy. A life to live, and a death to die. The circle he believed, till now, ill-contrived. As he lay in his bed, his strength quickly fading, he though of the creature, with fragile blue features. If it could live, a small meager life, and die without feeling any ill or vain spite, maybe so too, could he feel, content with his life.

An old man breathes.

An old man dies. A smile and some blue still left in his eyes.