Disasters by Choice

It rains again today. It is stronger than previous days, making gentle noises on the windows of the day room and yet Kate has left the outer door open again. The rain has a partner in the spinning eddies of wind that stir the indoor plants and sprinkle them with water. A butterfly has sought shelter in here and I must paint it. It seems to move slightly like it breathes more rapidly at my approach, its tiny edges and legs and protuberances like the edge of a person in love and leaving their beloved for home. I sit down with the drawing book on my knees and using the finest brush I have outline the image of the delicate creature. It stays for a time, letting me capture it. It amazes me that my eyes can capture this detail, the furry ends to its legs, the twisted whorl of its whiskers, like a narwhal's horn, that which we used to believe was the horn of a unicorn.

Then as if it knows I have it down save for the colours, it leaps away towards the skylight and settles higher up the tree. But it is still visible and slowly I mix the almost-white that defines its majority. This colour is just not that of the paper, a shade out from the bright white of the expensive parchment of the book and yet after going on, it leaps out of the page, turning my flat draughtsmanship to real-life under my hand.

And then my fatigue catches me and the butterfly is gone and not gone. In my mind it is hard to determine which of the creatures left me. Was it the model that came in out of the rain or my creation which came to life on the page, their places switched?