Francine Witte
Boy and Museum
A boy stands at the foot of a hill, craggles of rock and dust blend into the gray of his age, too old, not old enough. For a moment, it all seems museum to him, everything he does an artifact. He wonders what kind of exhibit he is and what wing of the building he will end up in. He doesn’t realize that everyone, not just him, thinks they will be remembered. There is the tiniest opening in the air just above him and he starts to climb. He wants to see where the carve of his face will be. A sharp-taloned eagle flies by, snatches the boy’s future in its beak. His parents wait for him at the top of the hill. The mother’s arms would reach down to help him, but they are filled with another child. The father has a cell phone in one hand, his own glory days in the other. The boy wonders how he can go anywhere now that the eagle has taken his future. Rather than start a climb he figures he can always start later, because museums are ancient and take eons to form, he tries to find that spot in the air, that open sleeve to find the bird that flew the future away from him. The boy’s useless hands waving the air to see where it opens. At the top of the hill, his parents’ arms, wanting to wave, but not.
A Butterfly Explains Its Wings
A nearby flower was asking. The butterfly waves the air aside so her words will have room. The air gets bigger and pretty soon it is filled with words like flutter and swoosh. The flower talls up to listen, its stem straight, its petals stretched into lobes. Last week the grass asked the flower about green and how come the flower was partly green, but partly other. Also, the grass wanted to know why it had to stay flat on the ground, or popping up through a sidewalk crack in this flower/butterfly city. And why is it that the butterfly gets to flit its wings, to beat itself the hell away and the flower get picked, bouqueted and corsaged, but the grass is nothing but tickle and glisten, and that’s all nice, but that doesn’t mean it’s going anywhere. And even though the grass loves the smooth belly of earth underneath, the soothe of soil on its roots, the grass cannot go anywhere, see anything. The butterfly stops explaining for a moment, looks at the stained-glass etch of her wings, and remembers the before, when she was caterpillar with nothing but curl and stretch, how a leaf was as far as she could go.
#
Francine Witte’s flash fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous journals. Most recently, her stories have been in Best Small Fictions and Flash Fiction America. Her latest flash fiction book is Radio Water (Roadside Press). Her upcoming collection of poetry, Some Distant Pin of Light, is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press. She lives in New York City. Visit her website at francinewitte.com.