Read The Cries of the Butterfly - A LOVE STORY Online
Authors: Rajeev Roy
Tags: #Romance, #Drama, #love story
The story I’m about to tell you took place in New Halcyon. Let me then first tell you a little about New Halcyon.
New Halcyon is a sovereign city-state in the North Pacific ocean. An island nation, she lies at a latitude of 35.10 degrees north and is 1,014 miles west of Los Angeles.
A prosperous developed country, New Halcyon is a democratic presidential republic, with a population of 10.281 million people and a per capita income of $56,468.
New Halcyon is a true universal nation—her citizens trace their origins to almost every part of the globe: North America, Central and South America, Europe and Russia, Australasia, Africa and many parts of Asia…name it. The official and widely spoken language is English.
New Halcyon can be clearly divided into two sections. The flat southern segment, called ‘The Rectangle’, is roughly 41 miles west-east and about 29 miles north-south. It’s also where the population of the city-state is based.
The northern segment of New Halcyon flickers out like a tongue from the top (north) of The Rectangle. It is about 18 miles west-east and 124 miles south-north—and is appropriately known as the ‘Long Tongue’. The western part of this segment has the ‘Western Wall’, a thickly forested mountain range (highlands and valleys), that runs 119 miles south-north and 12 to 13 miles west-east. The Western Wall rises abruptly in the air on the south where it touches The Rectangle, and gradually tapers down on reaching its northern end.
A protected forest, the unsullied Western Wall is a thriving haven for some of the world’s finest species of plants, birds and animals. It is also believed that this sanctuary is heavily loaded with mineral deposits and fossil fuels…although any sort of exploration in that direction is strictly banned. The Western Wall is widely acclaimed as an epitome of the natural world.
The flat east side of the Long Tongue is called the ‘Greenhouse District’, and it is here that the agriculture of New Halcyon happens, in copious greenhouses spread out over the district.
At the northern-most tip of the Long Tongue lies the nation’s only airport, the New Halcyon International Airport. Connecting The Rectangle to the airport is the country’s sole expressway. This expressway basically splits the Long Tongue, running as it does between the Western Wall and the Greenhouse District.
This then is a brief overview of New Halcyon. However, this description is alright as far as it goes. For, this story could’ve happened anywhere on the planet...anyplace where humans dwell. Because, in truth, this is the story of all humanity...
Sunday, November 7, 1999, 2-12 am...
SHE
had a haunted look in her eyes—of a woman about to lose her all. And yet, there was a weird resolve to her—of a woman on the most critical mission of her life.
It was an unusually cold winter night the woman stepped out into, from an aged six-story apartment building in north-central New Halcyon. In her hands, she held a rectangular cardboard box, partly open at the top, which she hugged ardently to her chest. Standing there on the sidewalk, she looked around her for a while. But she couldn’t see a soul—not human, not animal. She couldn’t see them—the two pairs of eyes staring at her, intently observing her every move—because they were crackerjack professionals.
The woman was covered from head to toe in dark grays, as if in
burqa
. Only her eyes showed—two windy-blue slits. She glanced around again, and now resolute, she turned left and began moving down the sidewalk.
Soon she reached a road crossing and with a swift look on either side, she swept past and onto a new pavement, bordering another chain of closely huddled old buildings. There was no hesitation to her and she kept pressing fluently, as if completely focused on her mission.
After two more road crossings, she finally stopped outside a nondescript building. She looked up the seven-story structure for a second, then peered into the poorly lit entrance. Step by cautious step she moved in, her senses on high alert. The ancient edifice had no escalator and she began mounting the first flight of steps.
Half the stairway light bulbs had conked off, the menthe-green wall paint peeled like dry onion skin, and a mild stench of rotting garbage wafted around. But the woman seemed oblivious to such considerations. Like she was oblivious of the two pairs of eyes that had inconspicuously followed her.
She passed the first floor, then the second. She paused at the landing of the third, catching her breath. She glanced down at the cardboard box in her arms and, as if instinctively, clasped it even closer to her bosom.
Soon she was on her way up again and now did not break until she had reached the landing of the top floor—the seventh story. She had come to her journey’s end. She stood outside an apartment door and stared at the rusty nameplate. It said, ‘Ceecee Sandford’. She kept gazing at it, as if transfixed, momentarily going as still as the night, still utterly unaware of the two pairs of eyes latched on to her like a couple of ghosts.
When at last she snapped out of it, she looked into the cardboard box again. And she kept looking. And a profound fondness welled up in those blue eyes, as if contained in that box were all the precious possessions of her life, things that mattered to her the most. And then the woman disintegrated. Her strength seemed to drain out of her in a gush and she frantically put out her left hand to the wall for support, even as she desperately clung on to the box with the right.
But only for a second. With what seemed like a colossal effort of will, she re-gathered.
She drew in an extended breath and gazed into the box one final time. This time she betrayed no emotions—the eyes had turned into lifeless marbles. Slowly she went down on her haunches and she lowered the box to the black floor. She remained hovering over it for a few moments, before rising back to her feet. And then with a sharp involuntary sob, she reached out and rang the door bell four times, then turned around and was gone in a flash.
The journey back was the opposite of the first part. Gone was the sprite in her step—her movements were manifestly labored. In fact, she seemed a different person altogether, a woman who had aged an era in a very short time. The scarf that had veiled her mug had come off and her face was the mask of death. Her body seemed suddenly bereft of soul—of a woman who had lost her all.
Someway she struggled up to her home, a studio apartment on the top floor of a structure no better than the one she had just visited. Entering the house, she kicked the door shut after her, then threw herself face down on her little bed. And she began to convulse, from head to foot. But weirdly, she shed no tears...nor did a single cry escape her.
***
Sunday, March 5, 2006, 9-16 am...
STANLEY
Knott had woken this morning with a terrible presentiment of evil and misfortune—that somehow this was going to be a catastrophic day in his life.
As a result, as he now stood beside the 1966 Mercury, outside the front porch of the big house in Butcher Garden—the Butcher family residence—dressed in an elegant white chauffeur’s attire, he realized he was sweating. He nervously glanced at his watch and noticed his hand was quite unsteady.
“Rot!”
It was a bright spring morning and the quietness of the sprawling garden added to Knott’s edginess. To him, it was the stillness of a graveyard. The exquisite fragrance that floated up his nostrils from a zillion flowers all around him was like caustic fumes—it burned his very skull.
But it wasn’t just the presentiment. What killed him completely was the close proximity to the Butchers. He had been employed only a month ago and although he was not supposed to work for the family directly (that was the privilege of the tried and the tested), a sudden illness to Joseph Scoff, the regular chauffeur and the family favorite, had orbited him into this assignment. Knott snorted unpleasantly.
Any of the dozen other senior chauffeurs could’ve replaced Scoff, but it has to be my blithering misfortune to be chosen for the gallows. This family just doesn’t have any class! Too blithering bad for me.
It was a temporary position of course, but one that had Knott’s nerves in a terrible tangle. For, like everyone else in New Halcyon, Stanley Knott was only too aware of the Butcher family—the first family of the city-state...nay, its virtual royalty, with a reputation that ran the length and breadth of the island nation…and way beyond, across the seas.
He wasn’t to know then that it was no chance that had brought him to this assignment today…that there was a deep design to it all.
Knott’s assignment today was to wheel the family—well, half of it—to the airport, at the northern tip of the island, from where they were to fly to San Francisco in one of their private jets.
He ran his hands over the black body of the big Mercury. It was a prehistoric car, so rickety if you pushed the doors from the inside with any strength, they would fly open. Knott wondered why the world’s richest family would want to still own an old bag like this, far less travel in it. But then he remembered what he’d been told: this was senior Mr. Butcher’s first ever car and held serious sentimental value. He liked to journey in it whenever possible, especially on long drives like these. That had also answered another question he’d wondered about:
why can’t the Butchers simply fly to the airport in one of their choppers and save much time...why the blithering road? The road is for mortals.
Knott glared at his quivering hands. He knew he had to do something before he fell completely apart. Something drastic. And there was only one thing to do. He had been hesitant to employ it, but he saw no other way now. His breath on hold, he looked around him furtively, a glint of cunning coming to his eyes, then dipped his right hand into his trouser pocket.
Five minutes later, he felt himself calm down a tad and then he began to appreciate the beauty around him. Butcher Garden was a veritable Shangri-La. A Rose Paradise. A great fan of flora since his nappy days, Knott knew more than a thing or two about them. Adjoining the front porch steps on his right was a bed of ‘Fragrant Cloud’, a bright-red, thick-petal rose whose high scent made you want to shut your eyes and swim in it. On the other side of the porch steps was a bed of ‘Elina’, a delightful yellow-and-cream flower that rested your brain. Knott found himself move away from the car, so he could see the front garden properly, and his lips automatically stretched into a smile.
Even at a distance he recognized them all. He spotted the ‘Pot-o-Gold’, a dazzling yellow rose, and he tasted its wonderful perfume on his tongue. There was the amber-orange ‘Sunset Celebration’ and again he could imagine its fruity smell. And there was ‘Scentimental’, a burgundy red-swirled-with-creamy-white rose, with a sweet spice odor. And a bed of ‘Livin Easy’, a scrumptious apricot-orange rose. And another bed of ‘St. Patrick’, a gold-shaded-green with a mild smell. It was as if Knott’s mind had suddenly been fitted with a high-powered multi-sense binocular that brought the pictures and the smells right up to him. He saw and smelled the ‘Yves Piaget’, with its bountiful mauve-pink petals and strong perfume. As he did the blushing creamy-white ‘Snow Waltz’... Oh, just beds and beds of roses speckling the entire estate. It was a sensory overload and Knott felt he would pass out in exquisite agony.
Linking the beds was the lawn, a fertile carpet of rich green. Coconut palms, banished to the periphery, picket-fenced the property. Here and there were Christmas trees, of varying heights. In the center of the front garden was a miniature replica of the Dancing Dubai Fountain. It wasn’t yet operational this day.