Butterfly 9/11

Blazing Reader,

Two years ago, on September 11, 2022, my late wife didn't show up for her thrice-weekly dialysis treatment. Nicole's kidneys had failed eleven years earlier. Eleven years of having her blood removed from her body, filtered and pumped back in was enough for her. She was done with dialysis. Nine days later she passed away, at home, in my arms, about as peaceful as one could be going face-to-face with the Grim Reaper.

I didn't take it peacefully. A butterfly of shock and horror still flutters in the centre of my chest when I think of those last days.

On her final day of dialysis, she went out to the Shakespearean Gardens, in our town of Stratford, Ontario, to release a caged monarch butterfly newly emerged from its cocoon. The video of this decisive moment has been one of the more popular on my YouTube channel. You can view it here: https://youtu.be/xH3FB-RQKDA?si=nZHUkAaumV8V-eCV&t=177

In the background, as the butterfly takes flight, you can see the local jailhouse. Nicole said stopping dialysis felt like she had ended a prison sentence. She believed death would only give her soul wings to fly free like that butterfly.

John C.A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/