The Pieridae

Ean liked the word 'ostensibly.' Perhaps it was because things truly weren’t ever quite what they seemed.

He was reading a book on WW2, or to be exact, the aftermath of the war in Germany. Ean liked books that explored history, because as he knew full well, even just as a 14-year-old kid born and raised in Manhattan, history had a way of repeating itself.

The hollow hum of a cargo ship captured Ean's attention from his park bench on Riverside Ave. That was one of a few "natural noises" left on the island. There were no more birds singing, or the crispy claws of squirrels chasing one another up and down trees, or even the jubilant cries of youngsters on the playground.

No, New York City was no longer a place where industry met society. The former had all but washed away any chance of salvation for the innocent, the natural, the generous. New York City had become a wasteland for capitalism that refused its own inevitable conclusion.

Escape was futile. Animals were dying everywhere, but production raged on, with those in power understanding that while mass consumerism might be over, specific demand would never be. So, greedy industry encompassed the greater NYC area, just as it always had. But no longer was there any respite from the self-indulgent madness. The city was a cloud of smoke with no crack in the window, and its inhabitants were left with no other option than to watch the precursor of events that would soon doom the rest of civilization.

Ean knew most of this because of his father. Even though he hadn't seen him for six years, he grew up on his father's lessons. Then, what eight years ago sounded like hyperbole soon became reality. Birds dropped dead out of the sky, squirrels nestled their way into holes from which they never returned. Family pets whimpered as if they felt the loss of innocent life, right before time called for their own lives.

But by that time three years ago, Ean's father was already long gone, on a voyage to the arctic circle he said. Ean was eight, his older sister 11, and his mother, 42, heartbroken. But she could never leave the city that raised both her and her husband. And he had grown to resent her for it.

Ean set his book down, remembering full-well another one of his father's lessons: "Never close the book before you have finished the chapter." Both a metaphor for life and a literal direction as to finishing pages, Ean's father always instilled in him to finish what he started, and yes, to read a damn lot.

"That is the only thing they can never take from you," he would say. “Curiosity.”

But Ean had no choice. It wasn't impatience or apathy that spearheaded his decision. It was an untempered curiosity. Before him, some 20 feet away, a girl was chasing something fluttering in the air.

At first fear consumed him. It had been so long since he had seen anyone his age outside. What could she be running after, that wasn't already dead from the inside out?

"Hey!" Ean heard himself blurt out. He quickly cupped his hand over his mouth, but the girl had already heard and seen him. She started to run away, and strangely enough, the fluttering object dancing in the air a moment ago, now followed her.

Ean wanted to stay put. His mother's warnings were loud and clear, like a saint on his left shoulder. "We can only control what we can control Ean," she would say. "We are safe indoors, and that is where we will stay."

But loud too were the words of his father, words that implored him to seek out the answers to his many questions. Like the devil on the other shoulder, his father's voice was louder, or perhaps rather just more in line with what Ean felt like doing in that instant. And like the boat that had so obnoxiously reminded him of his circumstances just minutes ago, he chugged along, exhaling air from each push.

The girl was fast; she had already made ground in her escape from Ean. But he knew one thing he likely had on her; he knew the park better than anybody. Where he once played and read with his father for hours on end, and now escaped to when his mother fell asleep after her night shift working, Ean knew if he beat the girl to a hill a half mile ahead, he could cut off her path and ask her some questions. His intentions were harmless, powered from curiosity and nothing more, but still an exhilaration filled his heart, a feeling he had not felt in the better part of three years.

As the girl turned back, Ean caught what seemed like an imperceptible smirk crack her lips. She was almost to the end of the narrow section of where they ran in the park, which would lead out to a larger, more open area of foliage. If she got there before him, Ean would never know what fluttered at her wing.

As the girl continued her trajectory straight, Ean darted off to the right, on a path less kempt but altogether more useful for his purposes. He would use this winding path to race up the hill and as the girl rounded her corner to the right, he would be able to dart downwards and cut off her path.

Ean stormed forwards, feeling the smoke in the air grip his lungs. Still, he also felt an innate ability to take his efforts up to a new gear, and he charged forward like a cavalryman. Up the hill he ran, rounding his arc earlier than he planned, because he noticed the girl coming around the corner faster than he expected. He raced down, dirt clumping up in front of him and obscuring his path forward. It made no difference. Speed and gravity were his friends.

Ean charged down the hill until right in front of him, the girl stopped in her tracks, with a beautiful Pieridae butterfly skipping on the air by her side.

The girl looked shell-shocked. “How” she began to say, before trying to dart to the left. But Ean had anticipated this. He stepped in front and gently grabbed her wrist.

“I hope I haven’t scared you. I just wanted to say hello before but - you see it’s been a few years since I’ve seen anyone like me, or anything like that,” he said as he gestured to the Pieridae.

The girl had on a fancy yellow blouse that contrasted warmly with her lightly-colored blue eyes. She looked to be Ean’s age, if not a year or two older, but now it was her whose eyes teemed with fear. Her eyes darted around as he spoke, as if wanting to make sure no one was watching her.

Still, none of this is what fully captured Ean’s attention. Rather, it was what hung on her freckle-covered chest. It was a locket, no larger than any other, but infinitely more detailed. It was the shape of a heart, with webs of gold stretching to the gold string that held it. In what was otherwise a cloudy day, the locket stood, almost reflecting sunlight that shone from directly above in the sky. Like a portal to another dimension, the locket seemed to fuel energy off of it, but still none of this explained the vibrant life that lay next to him.

“I am NOT like you,” the girl said as she threw Ean’s arm down. She looked around once more, panting harder than just the running would have caused her.

She stormed past, or rather, through Ean, seemingly not caring so much anymore that he caught up with her.

“The butterfly! What - how do you have it?!” Ean screamed after her. The girl kept on walking without a turn, the Pieridae bouncing along with her every step.

“I’ll tell the town about you! I’ll tell the central government about your butterfly, about the way it follows you around, I’ll tell them eve”

“STOP!” Ean was stopped short by the thunderous yell from the girl up ahead of him. She had turned and taken two giant steps back after hearing his threats.

“You’d be getting yourself killed if you did that. And if that wasn’t bad enough, if you have any care for anyone else not named…” she paused waiting for his name.

“Ean,” he timidly replied.

“...anyone not named Ean, then you’d stop yourself again. You’d be putting me in a lot of danger, and,” she paused in resolute disgust as she looked down at her locket. “And it’s not even fair.”

The girl, who had just a second ago seemed like an infallible power, now openly wept in front of him. She grabbed the locket around her chest and rose it upwards, in a motion presumably intent on shattering the object against the Earth.

But just that moment, the butterfly floated closer to her face. The Pieridae seemed to sense the opening of the locket, and instead of casting it asunder, the girl threaded one knot through another’s opening, and opened the locket.

Light rose from the gold like a sunrise through a break in the leaves of a tree. An Earthly presence felt real once again to Ean, right by his side for the first time in years. The Pieridae floated right up to the opening, and in a mesmerizing split-second, disappeared inside. Just as quickly as the light shone out of the locket, it faded away.

“My name is Alex, by the way,” the girl said, extending her hand. Ean obliged, shaking hands with the girl that now dominated all of his attention. “I don’t blame you for chasing after me honestly,” she said. “If I was you a year or two ago I would have done the same.”

Everything in his realm of sense stunned Ean. What was the power of this heart-shaped locket? How did the butterfly just enter inside? Where was this girl from, and why did she look so much different from all the other urbanites he passed every day he managed to get outside?

As if sensing his curiosity and incredulity at what he just witnessed, the girl once again spoke up, perking up from her defeat at his threats and perhaps recognizing a like-minded individual before her.

“Look, I’m not from here,” she said, gesturing everywhere from the dust cloud on the greyish/green bench next to them to the greenish/blue Hudson River to Ean’s right.

“My dad told me that he’d show me New York City,” she wryly chuckled. “I heard the news, but… I didn’t know it was this much of a ghost town.”

Alex explained that her dad was on a federal team that was coming to check on the state of New York City before deciding what to do with the people that lived there. The locket, a present her father had given her three years earlier, was what he called, “an opportunity for everlasting life.”

Ean listened intently, not saying a word. As she spoke, a couple older men and women passed on both sides of them, stopping to examine Alex’s yellow blouse before continuing to walk along with almost personal annoyance.

“I still don’t know exactly what it does,” Alex admitted curiously. “But I do know this Pieridae showed up out of it a week ago, and stayed by my side until the moment I just now let it go.” This she said with prideful amazement.

“And why were you running with it before?” Ean found himself asking.

Alex looked up with what looked like shame, but not for herself.

“Something was telling me to,” she replied, as she glimpsed down at the locket held firmly around her neck. There it sat, delicate yet sturdy, fastened yet unrestricted, like new worlds lay on the other side.