Red Butterfly

In spite of Rony’s voluntary confession, the policemen wanted some solid evidence for the murder . They questioned him further,

“Why did you do this boy?”

There was no answer from Rony. Instead, he pointed at a canvas with a butterfly painted in red.

The policemen looked perplexed, while fastening a handcuff onto Rony’s feeble hands.

He stood there disoriented with a contemptuous smile.  

Rony’s mother wrote this in his journal, ‘Every color has a strange story to tell, allow it to express them to the world.’ It was his mother who taught him to paint his thoughts onto the canvas. Every vague painting brought to him colorful butterflies and his wide eyes set them free into the sky. His father, a busy man, found no time to appreciate Rony’s artistic experiments. He shunned it as a waste of time and money. Nevertheless, his only audience was his dumb mother who was muted by nature for some strange reason. She loved red color, and this was transmitted to Rony as he too fell for the same color. His father had no time for the family, for he wanted to accumulate wealth by hook or by crook. Physically and emotionally Rony kept himself aloof from his father, who demanded a lot from him. He never liked to hear his ornery father talking badly about his mother, for his father often complained about her inability to speak, he even called her a dumb statue. His mother was often found disoriented, she chose to stay put in a placid state smiling at all the slanders directed to her. But her eyes often wore a red veil probably hiding her speech with much travail, while she had mastered her communication through eyes for her only son.

One day it was literally pouring down and the moon went hiding behind the long hairs of the pelting rain. The storm cloud refused to give up its fury, for it rained cats and dogs as if to quench the thirst of the earth. Rony was trying to give life to his canvas, with the rhythm of the pattering sound of the rain. The palette was filled with isolated red color combinations bidding to embrace the canvas in haste. Suddenly, a long creak sound of the door outlasting the downpour hit his eardrums. He ran to the door to confirm the trespasser leaving behind his unfinished work. But he saw his father moving in completely drenched in the rain. His father looked weary and dejected, and without saying a word he went into his room. Next day morning Rony was woken up by the hubbub of the neighbors who had gathered around his house. He overheard people saying about his father’s failure in his business. That led him to end up his life swallowing few red tablets, ofcourse, leaving behind Rony and his mother. Rony looked at his mother with a heavy heart, but she was very composed and wore the same red veil in her eyes. She held him close to her, refusing to weep for the premature loss of her husband. Rony saw his unfinished canvas giggling at him from the corner of the drawing room while the body was taken out for the last rites.

After the death of Rony’s father, he fell into severe depression. The only antidote to keep him engaged was to encourage him to paint. Rony’s mother bought him several canvases, and he painted all with varied colors except red. From the very day of his father’s death, he refused using red color, it never found a place in his palette thereof. His world was reduced to his loving mother, dozens of paintbrushes, colorful paints and canvases. His unfinished red butterfly on the canvas was dumped in the corner of the room waiting to be touched again. It was a Saturday, Rony reached back from school earlier than his usual time. As he stepped into his house, he heard his mother’s deep groans. He rushed in anxiously only to see his mother being strangled by one of his father’s business partners. She was gasping for breath, and her inability to talk withheld the possibility to call for help. He saw her collapsing like a bundle of cloth. With a loud cry Rony grabbed a chopper and hacked off the intruder’s head. He fell on the floor dead and the warm blood gushed out of his severed neck profusely. Rony was not deterred by the cold-blooded murder he committed with ease. He rushed to the drawing room to fetch his unfinished red butterfly. Sitting close to the corpse he dipped his brush into the warm blood, Rony completed his red butterfly.

As he left his house handcuffed, people gathered around saw him holding a canvas with a beautiful red butterfly close to the chest. He repeated like a disoriented man,

“Indeed, every color has a strange story to tell to the world, so did the red.”

People gathered around to see him off sobbed quietly and said, “He always loved Red Butterflies.”