A butterfly struggled on the surface of the pond.

Previously, all had been perfectly still. The water, the butterfly. Six of its tiny feet were spread even, balanced on the tension between the water molecules. Carefully, it opened its wings and beat them slowly. Their tattered tips stopped short of the water, and with every pulse black and yellow flashed before the eyes of the eager children.

Then the world remembered that it was raining.

One full drop caught the tip of the left wing as it reached its maximum span. The impact pushed the wing past its limit and forced the alluring extension to taste the water. It seemed at first as if the droplet would not break, but instead rest there – balanced as the butterfly, a top the thousands of scales that armoured its limb. The momentum though, forced the wing further down and the sphere of water strained.

It shattered. The butterfly tilted sideways in response, falling with its wing toward the dangerous, dark abyss of the water below. Defiantly, it raised a leg, and with all the strength in its fracturable body, it resisted the urge to fall. The system hung – the butterfly, the water, and the droplet of rain. Equilibrium was reached then overcome. The remnants of the raindrop slid from the butterfly’s wing and dissipated, forming hairline ripples which propagated before vanishing across the water.

Traces of this water stuck to the wing, making it heavier. The butterfly pulled it up to meet its partner, but the left wing would not reach the full distance. It could not – the water would not let go.

Another drop fell.

Ruthless, it hit the wing again – dragging it further, this time beneath the once stagnant liquid. The butterfly pushed with its feet and pulled the wing free, lifting itself from the water in a brief, desperate fight. It flew, millimeters above the pond, and remained there, suspended between the rain drops that fell and the water around it.

A few missed, hitting the water below, bouncing back up in new, unstable orbits before falling again. The butterfly pounded energy into its wings, forcing its motion sideways with the uneven weight until a drop it could not fight… The butterfly was hit at the base of its body and though it struggled upwards with the frantic flapping of its wings, the inertia of the impact dragged it down.

It hit the water, breaking through the surface with one of its slender legs. The leg can’t be pulled free. It sticks as if it were held there by a dark force, moving through the water.

Another drop grazes the right wing and the butterfly panics, batting its wings harder. The wing recovers, but the other is hit again and with the combined impacts, it too falls through into the dark.

The children watch, heads to the glass with their eyes level to the water. They were perfectly safe from the rain, huddling under the insect exhibit where they had a clear view of the creature as it struggled both above and below the water. The smallest of the group, a young red haired boy, pressed his nose onto the glass, fascinated by the leg kicking beneath the water. The butterfly was trying to swim, thrashing back and forth.

The teacher, standing behind the children, spoke through his graying beard. “What happens now?” He said, moving to the side of the group, raising his steadily smoking pipe to tap it on the glass where the rain drops trickled down. The small child pulled away from the glass when his breath misted it, obscuring his view.

“It drowns…” he replied sadly, as the rest of the children watched the rain fall more heavily. The upper layer of the water had become a turbulent mess, writhing and breaking at the mercy of the sky and the clouds above. The teacher smiled down at the child, taking a long draw on the wood of his pipe.

The teacher watched the boy whose mind was fixated on the event while the other children seemed trapped by the sight of the tiny creature, fighting to stay afloat. “How do you know that then?”

“The water,” continued the boy, using his sleeve to wipe away the last of his breath from the glass, “it gets on the wings and it can’t fly sir. Eventually,” he moved back to the glass in time to watch another drop of rain pound both wings under the water. Finally, the graceful creature’s head bucked up, its antennae unfurling before it slipped through the water in one swift movement. “It gets tired and it –” The boy followed the path of the butterfly as it fell, through the water and downward to the smooth rocks at the bottom of the pond. It gave a final kick of its feet and the boy thought he could feel its large, black eyes upon him.

The teacher finished the sentence for him, “And it dies – yes?”

The boy mourned the broken, lifeless body of the butterfly moving only with the gentle currents – brushing over the rocks. “I guess.” He said, touching the glass.

Droplets of rain raced each other down the walls of the enclosure. The full leaves of the tropical garden on the other side of the pond, sighed with the artificial wind. The teacher put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and beckoned him back from the glass. “It’s inevitable. Come Edmond, class.” The teacher said as he led the children to the next exhibit.

The butterfly tried to beat its wings against the water, but the weight of the liquid mass was too much for the fragile body of the winged creature. It kicked its legs and turned its head and then –

And then nothing.

All about the air was still. The universe watched on, feeling the trembling limbs cease to move.