A Loner Butterfly

It was a cold day of the summer season. Dark clouds had covered the area just before the nightfall. The winds made scary sounds, warning the people; that a storm was coming. It was a small town near the shore. Most of the people who lived there was the fisherman, who spent all the time fishing so they could feed their family. The town was dark and shabby with no electricity. Therefore, people of the town place fired lanterns at their windows sill which was blown by the roaring wind making the town very dark. The only light available was the lightning strikes every now and then.

She was seated near her window sill. Her head was hidden in her arms, her hair was a mess because of the blowing wind and she wasn’t making any attempt to stop the wind hitting her head. She used to be so scared of the dark but that night she didn’t even care that all the candles had been blown off. She was deep in her thoughts; mascara in her tears had made black spots on her face. Her eyes were dark and swollen. She had been crying for hours.

She was among the rich people of the town. Her father wasn’t a fisherman like most of the town people but he owned an Inn; one of the famous Inn. Their house was a big one with a lot of furniture.  The ground floor of their home it was the famous Inn his father had made with his life efforts. He died of a heart attack on her sixteen birthday, leaving his widow and three daughters with enough money to live their life without any trouble. The town people respected their family a lot and they supported them in every scenario.

After the dad’s death, she and her sisters were running the inn. They ran it in a style that it was still the famous inn and were loved by all the local fishermen and was a must visit place for foreign fisherman and traders. Her mother who was in her mid-forties couldn’t get over with the death of his husband and now she was always in her room. She lived in her own world; not caring about her daughters and hardly speaking. She only cared about her own stuff and if one of her daughters messed up with her stuff, she beat the hell out of them.

That day, it was her eighteenth birthday and she was missing her dad. Life had changed a lot for her. Her sisters were seven and ten years older than her and were always busy with their life, leaving her to her own. Both of them were in a relationship with the husky fishermen and were busy writing letters to them. She never liked that, she mostly ended up alone. She was her daddy’s favorite princess and when he was alive, he used to take her to many places. They used to go to the shore every weekend and built sand castles and surf in the sea. He even took her to the highland city to let her buy whatever stuff she wanted. Once every month, both of them used to hunt sparrows and fish and had a barbeque party at the beach till late at night. He was her hero. Life had changed so much for her now.

She was locked in her home and is not allowed to leave the place or else her mother would beat her brutally because she thought that is the only way of protecting her. Most of her day was spent while serving at Inn; the Inn in which she grew up eating as a special guest. Now she had to clean the floors of the Inn and do all the cleaning and dishes too and if she made a mistake, her sisters scolded her. When they were having a busy day, she ended up washing dishes until early morning.  Only on a few occasions, she was allowed to play with street girls and hang around with them.



That day was her birthday and her sisters who do love her, called the neighbors in for a party and they all celebrated her birthday. Her sister had made her chicken stew and a cheesecake. She had good moments when she opened her presents and got a hairpin and a pair of shoes from her sisters. Neighbors’ got her pudding, a silver necklace, and sea stone ring. Everything was nice until she started talking with her friends. They told her about their birthdays and they told her that they aren’t lucky like her to get many gifts but their mama cooks special food for them and all the things they do with their mothers. It all ended up badly for her and she rushed to her room crying. She felt so much alone in this world. All she wanted was love and care from her mother, she was her mother and everything in the world says that there is nothing like mothers love but why she never felt that. She was hurt, she wanted her mother to talk to her even wishing her birthday would be enough for her to make her day special. She missed her dad because he cared for her and loved her, she was treated like a princess but now everything was gone, snatched away from her. She envied everyone around for their mother loved them. Whenever she went out all she saw mothers telling their children to take care, to wear that dress, to eat properly and what not. She missed her mother’s voice, who never called her. She tried many times to get close to her mother but all she got was a cold response. She felt so much broken from inside. She wanted to be like other girls of her age, she wanted to fly like a butterfly but without her mother, she couldn’t. She would always be a caterpillar.

Her head fell into her arms again and the room was filled with her constant sobs.

A mother’s love is a blessing, show some gratitude and respect towards her because not everyone in this world is blessed with this beautiful emotion.

The story was originally published in The Meraki Magazine
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