“I don’t see it…!”

“Shh. Just wait.”

The trail they were walking had opened onto a field, out from under heavy-scented pine boughs that dimmed the daylight and hushed the world, from depths to shallows like a river flows into a lake. The change had been so sudden that for a moment the sun had blinded them and, while their eyes were turned down, she saw it. He hadn’t.

She was taller, and years had trained her eyes to look for hidden things. He was four, with much still hidden from him and waiting to be found. She leaned down behind him until her cheek rested against his head, her lips brushing his ear. She nestled her arm against his shoulder, and pointed so that his sight might follow her finger.

“Do you see that red bush?”

He squinted both of his eyes; squinting wrinkled his nose. “Yes!”

“And just to the right, there is a plant with big leaves, and a flower like pink fireworks on top…?”

“Nooooooooooooooo… Yes!”

Partly hidden by the grasses. The stem and leaf, the kind of soil, the open field, the time of year, the odd and recognized hanging shape, a fruit that was not a fruit.

“OH!” He gasped, then clutched her hand with his small hands, and spun toward her with his eyes wide. Something had moved, a flash of color. “It’s a WING!”

His whole heart was surprised. She smiled, and she cried, quietly so that he might not notice, though his delight fluttered there in her voice. “Yes, sweetheart, it’s wing!” Bright orange fabric, black-veined lace. It stepped out of its changing-room as if to wake the world. As if to make everything new again.

Watching, the little boy leaned back against her. She took his small weight as though she carried him inside of her. Together they watched the butterfly as it stretched and strengthened its wings.

And then it flew away.

“Macro Monarch” by Alex Cohen @ DeviantArt.com

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