Author: Öshi
I look through my window and see nothing but a barren wasteland. This is what it all came down to. The hatred of others destroyed our world and it destroyed my view.
Before the worldwide war, there were horses that grazed in the field outside of my bedroom window, daffodils danced in the wind and birds flew by without a care in the world. My younger sister and older brother would often play croquet on the grass and if I leaned out my window, I could talk to my mother gardening below.
Now, both my sister and brother are gone. My mother is far too ill to garden anymore and the animals that once gave me much joy, have been buried under tar, metal, and the poison hatred of the world.
Once in a while a rat will scurry across the bleak earth in search of food, picking up a small bone or two to rebuild the nest in which it lives and repopulates, but other than that, nothing moves. Any trees left standing are but brown skeletons calling in the wind to be put out of their misery.
There is no more color left in this world, for even the sunset is merely shades of gray. My clothes are gray, my food is grey. We all move around in a slow mournful ritual, almost like the dance of the dead. The world is silent, there are no words worth speaking anymore.
Looking out my window, I see something, something unusual. A small orb of color comes nearer to me. I want to shield my eyes for the blue and purple is too much for my bleak vision now, but I can not look away. As it nears, I realize that it is a butterfly. It lands on the sill of my window, almost seeming to look at me. I touch it's velvety wings, for I can not resist. My hand is not gray any longer!
I stare in awe at the peachy skin I had missed so much. I touch the hem of my dress, carefully, still a bit fearful, and it becomes a rich royal blue, my apron no longer pale gray, but shining, shimmering white. I touch the rest of me and color flows back into my life, my room, my bed, my desk, everything I touch. Leaning out the window, I place a hand on the wooden siding of the house, and that too regains its red coat. My childhood farmhouse is back.
The butterfly seems content and flutters off, brushing a wing against a supposedly dead tree and I watch the leaves bloom once again.
So this is what hope looks like.
^.^ Öshi