The Memory of Butterflies

by Grace Greene

Those lies hung like chains. Chains of love or of deceit? Chains were chains. Eventually, they would grow heavy and difficult to keep hidden, regardless of why one first chose to wear them.

No action is without consequence, especially unintended consequences.

What you sow . . . I had sown these seeds. These lies. I’d kept them watered and fertilized and pruned because I wanted to avoid an ugly, distorted reaping.

We reaped our fate by what we sowed. I had an idea that fate was predestined but that a thin line divided fate and destiny. Destiny was the result—hopefully the gift, sometimes the curse—that we might yet reap due to actions, or the lack thereof, that altered fate.

Sometimes our choices influenced our destiny. Sometimes fate stepped in and made those choices moot.