Joanna(Jo) is a writer deeply fascinated by the interplay between solitude and connection, both in life and in storytelling. Influenced by Gabriel García Márquez’s magic realism, she crafts narratives that honor the overlooked details of human experience, weaving nature and introspection into her characters’ identities. Joanna’s writing thrives in dialogue: between creator and creation, solitude and community, and the personal and the universal. She hopes to collaborate with other writers and share her thoughts.
Blending in the shadow of the butterfly
We are all butterflies.
ONE.
Vines desired to touch the forbidden canopy, stretching their fibers inside like snakes stretched their muscles to climb. Rocks were not allowed to be empty or shiny under the sun, all suffering from distinct dermatosis: moss and lichen. When the moss and lichen breathed and sighed, the festering wounds on rocks formed yellowish bubbles. Lights for those tiny and unremovable creatures were luxuries, while monopolized by huge canopies and leaves on the top of them. The only thing they could do was to gaze at the top, wishing fragments of sunlight neglected by titans on the top. Nevertheless, growing was their top priority, whether from their crooked scars or from their blooming flowers like pieces of light. Those are why Miona is here.
Miona tried to distinguish the chaos in the silence: tangled by the vines, trees sighed; fog and heavy drops of water made soggy moss and lichen scream and shout; beetles ’ legs were clicking the rocks like machines; their antennas created soft swaying sounds when they accidentally touched the leaves. Far away, the songs that vanished in the serenity and void in the air melted in sprinkles of lights. Miona could distinguish them all, although for many times this ability, mainly distrusted by her parents, was considered as a mental disorder or an avoidance for responsibility and pressure. As determined as a vine attached to the tree trunk with its roots, they dreamed that their only daughter must be a doctor or lawyer or wife of whom, instead of a freak who could distinguish the sounds in the surrounding and became obsessed with García Márquez, who was also a maniac and the book of who should be considered as the “ poison towards humans.” At least they did what they could do for Miona. Picking up burning pages that danced in the night, screaming and crying as harsh as they could like dying wolves, watching their delicate pictures and footnotes end up in red ashes just like the destiny of the Macondo, she, at that point, heard them saying something. “GO! GO! GO… It was not leery in her mind, because they ought to say so to her parents, but unfortunately only could she understand the meaning. Where could she go? It was an unsolvable question, useless and trivial. To swallow the poison they gave, to be addicted with regret and pain, to grow as they wished, were her duties and meaning of life, like a caterpillar that must swallow all the poisonous leaves in order to enlarge its ugly body.
They all became chaotic. The sounds concealed her into a cage, always. She sometimes wanted to cut off her ears but undid because she was a coward. Never, never was she eager to listen to the sobbing of her black hair on the floor, the crashing noises of beadles like the sounds of a car accident, the bumping sounds inside her that tormented her. Now what? She was forced to receive the laughs from the streams, the dropping noises like drums… NO! NO! THERE ARE TOO MANY OF THEM. Miona lost herself in echoes and mirrors, drowning in the ocean like a drowning fish. She lived in that environment for about sixteen years, but she also suffered. Pills…Pills….Mariposa… Mariposa…Where are you, my destiny?
TWO.
Mariposa… Mariposa, the sounds dragged her to her memory. The first Spanish word, also the last she learned, since the Spanish textbook ended up with the same fate as her most books, seemed to root in her mind. Her English was not bad, but not good enough to satisfy her parents, so learning a second language was nonsense and pushing her to make the ultimate sacrifice-destroying those books by herself. With fewer novels and books on her shelves, she realized that her life was built on others’ sacrifice instead of her own efforts: the accommodation her parents gave, the money they made, the food they bought, the efforts and pressures they put on herself. She did not and could not pay anything to them. All she managed to do was to work harder and used regret and sorrow to fill up the void inside her, like building layers of walls inside the house which only made the house smaller and smaller, crashing down everything inside her.
All human beings, including Miona even though she did not value herself in that category, could sense one similar feeling: numbness. More than an adaptation than a feeling, tears seemed unnecessary for her as she could not stop the flames devouring the characters in the books, the ashes that vanished in the wind, or ever-lasting rain in her life. Numb to everything, she lost her ability to shed a single drop of tear, even in front of her parents’ complaints or denouncing her as emotionless and pathetic. She considered all those harsh words as jokes from another stranger or lively pictures in front of her. You just cannot see any scenes that were more vivid in humans’ facial expressions. Eyes twisted into lines; mouths opened and closed like animals; eyebrows were raised up and down like destructive waves; their hands were flying like two aimless moths flapping their wings. Those are funny and pathetic.
However, she was breathing anxiously. Her lungs seemed to explode in this climbing and her legs were suffering in pain, like tearing by a wolf. In every lasting second, she could fall off, transforming into a pile of dirt or moss. Tears and sweats permeated into her scars and eyes, prohibiting her to open her eyes. “Worthless… pathetic…nothing… Why did I choose to wear cotton instead of something else? Why did I make the wrong decision? Indeed, right! I am nothing without them. I cannot even make a simple right choice. I always need them… Why can ’ t I see? Why can ’ t I see… She breathed and breathed, sensing the exaggerated noises and smell of blood in her lungs.
She needed them because she made a wrong decision. She wanted their control over herself because she could not do anything right. What could she do instead of listening to their judgments? Miona was selfish. Isn’t she? All her successes were composed of sorrows and torments from her parents, but she refused to satisfy them because of her passion for freedom, making them disappointed again and again.
“We are the only ones who care about you! We give you everything we have, and you just need to listen! If you dare to disobey me again, get out of the house because I bought this house, not you! I own it! You are not allowed to live in my house!!!”
“How dare you! You are not better than a pet, a dog! You are a grown-up now! Your life is not related to us anymore and you do not deserve our help!!!”
She felt the current surrounding her rising and heard the chaotic pounding sounds in her chest. Those were endless but random, like a roaring machine in a decrepit room. Why did she try to escape from the meaningless for freedom? She could live a normal life without rebellion or against the rules inside the sacrificial family, like any other people in the world, and married a rich man she never noticed before. Miona would not exist in the world. Instead, there would be another tired mother sobbing and fainting besides the washing-machine or a mute ghost that only complained in front of her children but not her husband, wishing them to take her away but also encouraging them to complete the mother daughter cycle in the society.
“Children, Children… Miona could not think of the future.
A small child, leaning against the door, used all her strength to resist the storms outside. Her body shivered like it was infected from a cold, but she did not make any sounds, even though her dress was wet. She tried to ignore all those noises, but it was inevitable. Nothing stopped her from hearing the screaming of the sofa, sobbing of the chairs, and mourning sounds from the floor. Her clothes were colorful at this point: red stains from oil, yellow from boiled egg, and white from rice, green from broccoli, and black from seaweed. Coldness permeated into her bones and sweats were secreted like glue sticking all those awful elements together as a collage. “Bang!” The door shouted as if it were shot by a gun. Sliding down from the door, tears began to circle in her eyes. Her trembling hands covered up her face and sorrow.
By the time the house was submerged in silence, her fingers finally found the verge of the door and opened it in silence. Mess and lights all exposed in front of her. Her mom stared at the ceilings with her red eyes full of tears. From time to time, she stood up, grabbed some tissue paper and started crying again. Miona did not understand, if her mother had to wipe her tears, why could not she just cry all at once and then wipe off her tears, when Miona was gasping at piles of dirty tissue paper on the floor she needed to clean. When Miona ’ s eyes turned on the floor, her heart sank. Besides the broken family picture frame, her butterfly specimens were in pieces, like flower petals after the storm. They were all destroyed by this chaos, because of their aimless fighting and roaring. Her eyes enlarged like lions seeing an invader and she never resented her mother more than this time. Her parents destroyed everything precious, from this little home to her butterflies. Miona trembled, not because of pain, but because of excitement and anger. Tears seeped out from her fingers, forming some small whirlpools on the ground.
Suddenly, millions of butterflies flew out of the center of them towards Miona. They were attached to the fingers and faces where the tears still remained, even on the ears of her murmuring “Mariposa…” Miona was not annoyed by them, since they had some special verve that could calm her down and realizing that those butterflies would not abandon her like anyone in her life. Everyone liked butterflies because of their distinct colors. They were despised soon after they dispossessed those decorations. However, Miona loved them, because of their tiny bodies surrounded, the gathering warmth they created around her, the soft flapping sounds into her ears. She loved them when she could not see them.
“Mariposa, Mariposa… Hundreds of butterflies sang. Miona knew this was the end of the nightmare. Waving her hands to get rid of those butterflies and making sure there was no one left, she would open the door and clean up the mess after the fight using taps and brooms.
Waking suddenly from this memory, fresh air with moisture entered her mouth. Intense bright light made her blind in a second. Miona, too shocked to say a word, found that she was in the forest on a mountain thousands of kilometers away from home. Creatures grew and collapsed, and leaves covered up all the secrets in this forest. Those creatures could not stop her from escaping, so she could not inhibit them from fighting. Nothing can hurt herself at this moment in this greenish cocoon.
Nothing… Nothing…
THREE.
In most people’ s perspective, Miona was a total disgrace, even towards her parents. She made too many mistakes and refused to look after her parents when they were sick. She bared them all in extreme stamina and even her actions seemed weird to cause sneers.
Spending long days reading and writing, she ignored most people’ s opinions about her. Mute as a butterfly when others talked to her, she did not want to create any other voices to fulfill her brain that was already crowded with information and sounds. Using writing to express herself, she could at least reduce the intensity of information in her mind, but that was never enough. Thousands of opinions and judgments still instilled her mind like galloping wild horses. “Abnormal” was the only word to describe her since nobody ever got close enough to know her. At least, the butterflies could. They could stay at windows for hours to listen to her new poems and lyrics, even though a few hours for Miona was some years for them. Miona was titan to them, like a god and a prophet.
However, more and more butterflies died in front of her windows. Her parents sprayed pesticide, set pest-stickers in her room, and masked her with veils so that those insects would not intrude their house. They started a long fight with butterflies. None of the butterflies died when they entered, but all of them choked when Miona finished reading her works. They did not scream in front of her like beetles but silently fell off without sobbing or crying. The wings of them scattered all across the floor, like a shower of flower petals, and were dispossessed by harsh brooms. Miona never wrote in her house again.
The leaves behind and beneath her seemed shivered with cold, forming a cycle of repeating and creating themselves. When can she arrive at the top? When can she end this harsh journey? Sense already told her that she should leave, but she did not resign herself to fate, like a crusader. Even though she knew this whole journey was meaningless and the destiny was far away, she wanted to know the distance between her and her aim. Of course, she was foolish but indulgent, like a butterfly falling from the top. When they chose to fly, the countdown to death already began, but they still struggled to live even though they foresaw their destiny. Did they do anything wrong?
Everyone in this society is finding his or her own identity even though what most of them left was an empty husk. Most of them needling their decrepit lives again and again with all their strength but ended up like pests. Lying to themselves that their lives would be better and better if they tried harder, they corrupted at last and their scars that were hidden were exposed to air and got infected. Finally, they died because of infection from bacteria. Just like them, Miona had needled her life for sixteen years. Except for communication, she managed to achieve every goal from her parents, her teachers, and even the whole society because she always thought if she worked hard, the butterflies would not die and fly away. She held that thought until that day.
When her parents gave and forced her to swallow some purple sweet pills, she did. It was the first time that butterflies died immediately after they touched her, with fierce screams and cries. They could not understand why their prophet killed them, so did she. It was the last fight she had with her parents. Miona escaped after that.
Lights permeated the darkness after the fog, creating some gold circles on the path. Miona followed the steps that nature created. Drops of water shivered and trembled when the sun shone at them, forming tiny clouds above the steps and singing strange lyrics, like a chorus.
Birds’ feathers thrashed with leaves and the echoes from the empty caves in the mountain formed a peaceful atmosphere. Other sounds vanished without signs, like fog vanished in the air.
She placed her bag on a large rock and poured out all her water in her kettle. She threw away her phone like throwing away a piece of rock, ignoring hundreds of calls and text messages. The cripples vanished while she ran towards the top of the mountain. It was nearer and nearer. “The end…I finally reached the end, the top.”
She was standing on the top, facing the falling sun and remaining sunlight. The shadow was elongated by the lights. Two wings broke her clothes when she jumped off. Her body was as thin as a butterfly. Millions of red butterflies whispered “Mariposa ” when she fell…