shattered. It burst in tears that poured in typhoons of sorrow from his eyes. It ran in waterfalls down his cheeks, down the hill and into the burning valley. And the tears became a wild river that spread across the meadow, extinguishing the fire and bringing calm.
Zyn stared through fiery eyes, across the river and up at the hill. The flames licked like hatred through his heart, and he set out to finish Amon. However, as he stepped into the river, the tears put out the flames, and when he emerged, ashen grey and regretful, on the other side, the sorrow returned, and he walked woefully up his hill. He sat down and looked upon what he had done and thought of his butterfly. His grief flowed in ash down his cheeks and into the valley below to mix with the river of Amon’s tears.
And between the two boys, the ash and water filled the valley, and beneath it all the butterfly sank under the weight. As she faded, the boys’ sorrow and longing sank into her. Her wings twitched, then trembled, and beneath the waves the butterfly began to glow. Her wings stretched, her body growing and increasing. She became so large that when her resurrected wings finally fluttered to life beneath the river, a wave flooded to the surface and raced past the hills to the ocean, sending ash and tears to spread far and wide on the waves of the world.
The boys sat on their opposite hills awestruck by the wave. They looked down into the valley, scanning the river. When the butterfly’s giant, gold-tipped wings emerged from the water, joy radiated through their shattered hearts and fused them back together. They sat stunned with wonder as the butterfly lifted into the sky, its giant wings glowing of pure light brighter than the sun. She filled the expanse before them, casting shadows across the river and valley, and the boys were motionless, shading their eyes from the glorious luminosity of the brilliant butterfly.
And in the light of the butterfly, the river remained and the trees returned and the flowers blossomed. She rose higher and higher into the sky, until, at the zenith of her ascent, she burst all at once into millions of tiny butterflies all the colors of the rainbow and shades of the spectrum, bringing beauty with them on their gold-tipped wings. They scattered high into the sky and looped and whirled down the valley.
Zyn and Amon were mesmerized as the butterflies raced toward their hills. They danced around them like tiny tornadoes, swirling and twisting as the laughter spilled from the boys’ hearts, before flying off in dizzying whirls to every corner of the world. And they shaded their eyes to watch them disappear across the ocean into the blue mist of beyond.
They were so captivated, so consumed by the elation of this profound revelation and this magical resurrection, so frozen in their happiness and
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