Leave me Alone, Damn Butterfly

This is a story about a damn butterfly that visits Colet at the window of Aly’s house. The butterfly upsets Colet, and they disrupt Aly’s creative process. How to stop distractions?

Aly was sitting in front of his sketchbook, with no valuable idea to contemplate. The imagination had refused to visit him more often. Two months have passed since his last great work. Of those works that everyone wants to acquire. Of those that expose what is beyond the human body, those that reveal those perfectly thought-out defects. You may be wondering why someone would enjoy adhering to imperfections? It is a great question, “It is a question of focus, my dear.” Boasting of being a great thinker, this has been Aly’s answer for all who have asked the same question. Ali’s idea is based on observing the usefulness of every detail before mere aesthetics.

On one side was accompanied by the beautiful Colet. A canine of the German Shepherd breed. She had been quiet on Aly’s feet during the early hours of the morning. Great affection had settled between these two since the neighbor had knocked on the door to find a home for poor Colet. The previous masters had left it alone and without food in their backyard. They had left for the next City, and no one knew the date of their return. At least that is what the neighbor shared with Aly.

Like every morning, Aly got up to close the window that overlooks his garden. Colet always falls captivated by the smell of flowers and the singing of birds. So much so that she went to the window and scratched the fly cover. It is something that bothered Aly because she would have to replace it shortly after acquiring it.

Nothing was more annoying for Aly than Colet’s outbursts of madness against the damn butterfly that had been visiting them on time at 9:07 in the morning for two days.

Finally, at 9:05 AM, Aly found himself the sweetest of ideas for another high-impact work. He began to draw the first lines on that blank sheet. Silhouettes, thick and thin edges, keywords, and blots took turns touching Aly’s sheet. When the inevitable butterfly made its entrance, it flew up and down; it rotated on its axis; it sounded its long and beautiful wings, and is perched on the windowpane.

Colet discovered it for the third day in a row, raised his head to get a better angle, and be able to identify if it was the same flirty butterfly. Colet confirmed that it was the same, prepared the ritual to let the butterfly know that it had been caught. With great power and enthusiasm, Colet opened her jaw to make the biggest bark she had ever done. Colet barked so hard that Aly, stunned by the bark and the consequent echo, reacted abruptly in his seat and drew uneven and unwanted lines on what was his perfect representation of his thinking.

Colet moved at once to the closed window where the butterfly had already begun its flight.

Angrily, Aly asked Colet to sit down again and stop barking. He had not yet realized the atrocity caused to his art.

Colet ignored all instructions issued, for its nothing was more beautiful and attractive than catching the damn butterfly. Bouncing, loud barking, hooves hitting the window, and spinning around the room were what Aly witnessed.

“Damn butterfly, you upset Colet, who upset me at the same time,” Aly uttered.

Aly returned her gaze to the blade possessing his art and noticed the incorrect and unaesthetic spots and lines it had suffered. An attack on his intelligentsia was how Aly viewed Colet’s action.

Fed up with the barking and disregarding Colet’s joy with the butterfly, Aly got up and grabbed Colet with immobilizing force and dragged her to the break room. He left it there while he went back to shake the window with a cloth to scare the butterfly away.

Having pushed the damn butterfly away and removed Colet from temptation, Aly searched the storage room for something that might help him end the annoying and unhelpful situation for his moment of creating and preserving his senses.

Among many things, he found a couple of curtains and a roll of duct tape. Aly took the material found in the warehouse and went to the window. A ladder was not required, as it was high enough to reach the top of the window and install the curtain. Aly calculated the curtains; He was not going to damage his window to satisfy his need. After all, he had designed it herself. He placed the curtains, secured them very well with the duct tape. He intended to resolve at the moment until he had the opportunity to buy professional material.

Aly returned to the break room and released Colet, again. They resumed their initial positions. Aly with his sheet thinking how to fix it. Colet on Aly’s feet, staring into the darkness generated by the installed curtains.

Two hours later, when Aly had found his way back to his work with no place for failure, the damn butterfly returned to the window. This time it found a closed window and no view into the house. Flirting would not be that easy. The butterfly approached the windowpane, and with great force, unimaginable in a butterfly, flapped its wings until it generated enough sound to attract Colet.

After a few seconds, Colet identified a sound similar to that of the morning butterfly’s wings. It got up, not screaming this time. Aly did not notice Colet’s movement because he was on track with his work. Colet leaned out of the window, and his snout moved one side of the curtain, enough to see the butterfly. Colet was excited again and prepared its loudest bark to celebrate the return of the butterfly. When Colet barked, Aly also reacted scared and abrupt. He didn’t think it would happen again. Colet kept barking and jumping under the curtains.

Before rising from his seat, Aly looked at his work and noticed more lines that damaged it. The pen used to draw cut from the center of the sheet caused the artwork’s loss. Aly screamed in despair and annoyance. He got up very violently and went to the window in question. He stopped a meter barely from Colet and the window.

Aly stopped to think to identify who was not letting him work:

“The damn butterfly upsets Colet. It humiliates Colet by flirting with it from the front without the possibility of catching it. Colet is unable to refrain from the butterfly’s provocations. Colet gets on my nerves. Colet made me smash my artwork. Colet screams so loud it breaks my concentration. Colet is closer to me. The butterfly is outside the house. The key to open the door to the garden is on the other side of the house. Colet scoffed at my effort to draw the curtains.”

Aly parted the curtains, and with excessive force held Colet; He held it up to eye level. Colet turned its head to Aly, glad he was helping it up to the butterfly. Aly looked at it for a moment and said, “This is the solution.”

With great violence, Aly pushed, on three occasions, Colet towards the window, causing the glass to break, and poor Colet to cry. The butterfly left when seeing so much aggression. When Aly observed this, he dropped Colet onto the broken glass. Colet got up in fear and pain and went to the break room to hide from the evil Aly.

“I did it. Colet is gone and will not bark anymore. The damn butterfly is gone,” Aly said with such relief.

The butterfly never returned to the window. Colet died after a week of being injured and without treatment or food. Aly could not get near Colet to give it croquettes. Aly’s creativity soared in the days that followed.

After a month and after having buried Colet in the same garden where the butterfly arrived, Aly’s best friend came to visit. As the first exchange of words, he asked for Colet. He had not seen Colet for a long time.

“Colet… Colet, it’s dead. Damn butterfly,” Aly realized.