Today we found someone extraordinary.
Matt saw her first, on the wet pavement. But I touched her first. I held her in my hot little hand and wanted so fervently to breathe life back into her.
And then she shuddered and fluttered and coughed fairy dust into my palm, and I think god pressed the pause button for a second, it was so beautiful.
She is four inches wide and her body is as thick as my thumb. Her wings are bright yellow and dusty pink. Her legs are black and shiny and fierce looking. Her fat little body is delightfully segmented. She is coated with pussy-willow down. She is perfect. But she cannot fly.
This is very very special, we decided.
Creatures like her do not just lay down next to the trash can at Borders to die, we said.
The planets must be crazily aligned, we thought.
She came home with us.
I cradled her in my left hand, humming gently, not sure if she was on the brink of death or asleep. Then Matt put some music on.
She likes Tom Waits.
He made her all fluttery. I know exactly how she felt.
He said she was mine. I did not want to disagree. We took her to my house, put a purple square of tasseled silk on my pillow, and gave her a lovely place to rest. Her delicately exquisite beauty required equally unique surroundings.
She is still upstairs, fluttering on her throne next to two slender flickering flames. The encyclopedia says her kind lives only a few days and does not have working mouthparts, so she cannot feed.
I feel like I have captured a leprechaun.
I half expect that by the time I go upstairs to sleep, she will have turned into a fat fairy godmother with kind wrinkles, eager to give me a handsome prince and to grant me three wishes.
There is something funny in the air. Moonpowder and change and something peach-scented.
I am in love, maybe.
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