START OF DICTATION

My Mourning Cloak butterfly is pinned in a shadow box. The frame is about the size of a postcard, or in terms you’d understand, the dimensions of your arm’s holoscreen. It’s very important that it comes with me. It would be a huge loss if it were left behind to burn.

Quint, my Russel Terrier, and I must evacuate our apartment today. As soon as possible. For good. Before the signal went down, my granddaughter Gloria made me promise. It's the damn fires. That’s why the Mourning Cloak is off the wall and in my lap while I dictate this note from my living room sofa. It’s just too much packing, all of this, and I need to rest. Seems resting is all I do nowadays. My hips ache and my back spasms with any activity. 

I can’t reach Gloria. I’m leaving a voice note here for you, whoever you are, a neighbor, a firefighter, or an officer. This will have to suffice as my final words if I don’t make it to the evacuation checkpoint five blocks away. 

My Mourning Cloak’s wings are spread open as if he is sunning himself on a rock. He’s not. He’s dead in a box. Real biology though, genuine organic material, scales, and all, but dead. Mourning Cloaks aren’t the flashiest of the butterflies, but they always made my heart skip a beat when I caught sight of them. Their wings are a dark brown velvet, almost black, with a sunflower gold trim. You should make an inquiry for SUNFLOWERS. See the petals? They are a lush yellow. That’s the color that rims the wings of the Mourning Cloak. The macabre sentiment of the name tugs at me. It’s covered in darkness, acknowledging death, and yet at the end it tells of light coming through, and renewal. Apt, since it was one of the first butterflies to emerge in spring, a sign of winter’s end.

This butterfly is the last of my collection. I’ve sold the others over the years: the Monarchs, Giant Tiger Swallowtails, Question Marks, and Painted Ladies. It pained me to sell my friends, to see the wall become emptier, to have the wallpaper where they hung start to fade. I can’t sell him (and you shouldn’t either if he is now in your possession. The market will be dried out by the fires anyhow). Quint and I have needed the money, genuine organic material sells well, and I’m too old to work, but he’s the first butterfly I captured with Gloria, my granddaughter. Gloria, the most wonderful gift my daughter, Mel, ever gave to me.

The charcoal scent of smoke is strengthening in my apartment. Quint’s panting is becoming laboured. I do need to rest longer before walking to the checkpoint though. I should tell you a bit about Gloria so you can recognize her. When she was young, the color of her eyes matching her two neat auburn braids, and my hair was showing just a few greys, I’d take her on meandering summer walks through the meadows. Our soundtrack was the bristling buzz of cicadas and the gurgling of streams. Make an inquiry for CICADA SONG. The sound may seem grating to you but for me it calls up scents of dewy sweetgrass and the feeling of warm sunlight on the back of my neck. Gloria was the most curious of children. She wanted to know every plant, animal, and insect by name. The technology was cruder back then, but we could take a picture and a program would spit out a list of suggestions for identification. It fascinated us, so much information at our fingertips. The butterflies were our favorites to watch, whether they flitted from flower to flower, yawned their wings open to rest, or danced in a tornado of circles to mate, our eyes were glued to their every movement.

I believe these walks helped shape Gloria’s view of the world, sparking her passion for nature. She pursued her degrees in biology and now she works on projects for the conservation of biodiversity, preserving genuine organic material with Bio-Value Corp. 

Anyone can walk into a zoo and see mechanical animals and insects. They seem real. We feel like they are, but they aren’t. They can be shut off, controlled. At the end of the day not a sound is heard in the park except the hum of charging batteries. 

Nowadays, it’s rare to see a Mourning Cloak aloft on a breeze. You wouldn’t believe it if you did. With such ease we forget what once was, yes, it can be brought up in front of our faces in a gesture, but we must think of it first. Gloria is there to remind us and I led her by the hand into the wild fields that created her. Make an inquiry for MOURNING CLOAK ALOFT ON A BREEZE. You’re asking me to live without that in my life? Gloria isn’t.

Quint and I must leave. Gloria said that. I trust her. She has taken care of me in my old age. That’s why the Mourning Cloak is in my lap, cradled in my wrinkled fingers. He’s coming with us. I can’t leave him behind to watch the flames consume our apartment, and to have the heat turn his wings to ash.

Quint is curled up sleeping in his dog bed under the window. He won’t be happy to be moved, and I’ve held off as long as I can from disturbing the old boy, but he is coming too. Quint under one arm, my Mourning Cloak under the other. The blinds are closed. I can’t bring myself to look at that brown fog that envelopes the buildings now, the tops of the skyscrapers poking out from the haze, placing me in a city and not a sea of smoke. If I squint my eyes and look up I can trick myself into thinking I see a patch of blue. Make an inquiry for BLUE SKY. Of course, I don’t see what your holoscreen is projecting.

Quint is Genuine Organic Material, a live GOM. He’s legal, I have his papers. He was grandfathered in after the nationwide pet ban. I give him a portion of my rations, so no extra resources are used. Still, when we go out people want to kill him out of principle, calling me a selfish old bitch. I’ve been yelled at, spit on, and attacked. Given the chance, I think they’d try to sell him for the money. We’ve had close calls. Men have ambushed me, grabbing my collapsible wire shopping cart with Quint cuddled up inside. To our benefit, people don’t have experience with real dogs. Quint lunges forward and bares his teeth and they flee. Make an inquiry for DOG SNARL. Note how sharp the teeth are. You wouldn’t want those chompers coming down on your arm, now, would you? It’s best we stay inside though. Easy enough to have everything delivered by drone. The smell of burning is too much for me, now. Hurts my nose.

Gloria says we must leave. The fires are closing in. In the past, I would have stood my ground, believed we were invincible against destruction, but last year’s fire season proved me wrong. Make an inquiry for…never mind. Mel was caught, out there, somewhere along that flickering horizon, her ashes carried away in the updrafts to an unknown hereafter. Gloria left without a mother, I without a daughter. It roils my stomach. Other neighbors and their children dying of heat or smoke inhalation trapped in their cars, behind doors. Not this time. Not Gloria, and not me. I’ve made it this far. My frail bones, brittle nails, and sagging skin can make it one more time. But if Mel couldn’t…

I must leave where I raised her. Where Mel raised Gloria. Do you see the kitchen door frame? Is it still intact? You see, I like to run my fingers over it. Notches dent the wood, marking Mel and Gloria’s growths, their heights racing decades apart. I can’t very well bring it with me. The frame is to be fuel for the flames, along with the sofa I’m sitting on, my books, and Gloria’s childhood nature sketches. I can bring Quint and my Mourning Cloak to the checkpoint. That's all.

I can’t be late. I’ll check to make sure the oven is off, the appliances are unplugged, and the taps aren’t running. Oh, the pain of evacuating. I should check the condition outside. I think the smoke should be letting up.

Yes, good boy Quint, let your mother get to the window.

Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Of course not, make an inquiry for FIRE ENGULFING A CITY.  Now, do you see billows of black brought into being by glowing orange rage? Me too.

Damn.  Yes, yes I hear the alarms. Still a few minutes left, though. I’ll run my fingers over the notches of the kitchen door frame. I’ll look through Gloria’s sketches. I’ll pet Quint. I’ll sit and admire my Mourning Cloak pinned in a box. 

Do me a favor. Make an inquiry for MOURNING CLOAK ALOFT ON A BREEZE. Note the yellow fringe on the wings. And if you see Gloria, tell her I’m safe.

END OF DICTATION