• I remember her short dark brown hair and the pink dress she wore the first time we met. There were tiny yellow flowers on the bottom corner where her knees would start and her hair flowed downwards like a waterfall and ended the exact same way every M. Night Shyamalan movie did -with a twist. For a moment, when our eyes first met, I had everything a 7 year old kid with freckles and buck teeth could ever wish for. I tried my best to say hello, all I wanted was an excuse to hear what her voice sounded like. I tried my best to say hello and all that left my mouth was a struggle of words and an insufficient amount of air going in and out of my lungs due to the fact that it all seemed to clog up in my throat. She smiled and made her way over to me. She reached out her hand and said hello. And from there it all started.

    The moment I got home from school, I rushed over to my mother and told her about this girl I met named Mari.
    “She had brown hair and she - today she wore a pink dress and today she did this thing - oh we played this game-” and my mother told me to calm down before I had a heart attack.
    I remember going to bed excited as all hell to see her in the morning. I closed my eyes and after a long interlude of darkness, I saw her. She wore the same pink dress and her hair was still brown and it still ended with a twist. I don’t remember what happened in the dream. I just know that she was there. All I know is that I woke up and felt a little disappointed but at the same time a little relieved. I remember arriving at school a little early just so I could have a little more time to play with her before class started.

    And so for weeks we played together. She’d beat me at hop-scotch and we’d play chasey ‘till our legs caved under us. We’d sit and lay in the tall grass in our park and call out the shape of clouds until the clouds dissipated and formed stars and the sun was now just a white rock looming overhead. She would tell me stories about how the sun and moon were once lovers and the only reason why the sun and moon appear at different times is because they’re chasing each other, trying ever so hard to reach each other and hold each other. Desperately trying to catch the other, the sun and moon are stuck in their endless chase. She’d tell me all kinds of stories as we walked around the hills and through the fields and up and down the streets and I remember it all being the highlight of my day. Just seeing her and listening to her voice and hearing her laugh. I remember how it made me feel like there was nothing anyone could say or do to make me upset, or to put me down. And maybe she was the sun to my moon. Because even though we were so close, I couldn’t help but feel like she was so far. I could never really reach her and it seemed as though she never wanted to be reached.

    I remember the day when everything came crashing down. I was walking to the park to meet her. I held a letter in my hand that my mother helped me write which contained every single feeling I felt for her and was sealed in a tiny little envelope. It was supposed to tell her how she was cute and that she smelled like roses. It was supposed to tell her that I liked it when she laughed and that her hair was shiny. It was supposed to tell her that I loved the way that she would always smile no matter what was happening. It was supposed to tell her that- in all my seven year old innocence- I loved her. I never wrote those words but I sure as hell might as well have. I found her in a field chasing butterflies.

    I called out to her but she didn’t respond. She just continued running and jumping and swiping but only finding air. I approached her and could see the redness in her eyes and saw the tears falling from her cheeks. She was muttering to herself as she continued to flail. I asked her what was wrong and her muttering only grew louder and she began to sob. And her swipes became more desperate and she seemed to jump higher, desperately trying to catch this yellow butterfly. I asked if she was okay and her eyes only gave way for more tears. Her face was red and her blue dress was now stained with tiny droplets. This was the first time I saw her without a smile and I didn’t know what to do. I dropped the letter in my hand and I moved closer to her. She jumped so high that she lost her feet and she fell backwards onto me. I fell to the floor and landed on my back and her face was dug into my chest. I could feel the tears soaking into my shirt and her cries were louder. She was crying harder than she was before. I sat up and held her to me. I wanted to cry with her, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do but I just held her. Her hands gripped my shirt tight and she twisted it and screamed in between sobs. “I want her back!”
    I asked her who. She pulled away from me to catch her breath. Her sobs grew softer but the tears never once stopped falling from her eyes like tiny little diamonds and splashed against her blue dress. There and then, she told me the last story she’d ever tell me.
    “When a person dies”, she began “Th- they turn into butterflies. That’s what daddy told me. So… I found mummy inside her room. She was floating… like an angel. But her wings weren’t there… and so she was just floating. And she was just so white. She was so white. She was…”
    The tears fell from her face again and she fell unto my chest. I did nothing but hold her there for what seemed like an eternity.

    Eventually, her father came to get her. I stood up and felt my legs grow weak. He thanked me and carried her away. I turned around and realized that I didn’t have a chance to give her my letter. But it didn’t matter since the letter had disappeared. Carried away with the wind. I remember going home that night and hugging my mum and begging her not to become an angel. I never saw Mari again after all that. I walked to the park and the fields and I sat and waited for her. I even wrote another letter. But she never showed up. It was weeks before I saw her again. But it was different. Because I didn’t see her at the park or in the fields. She was on TV. A picture of her was on the screen and my mother had tears in her eyes. She held me close to her and it took a while for me to understand what was happening. Mari wanted to be a butterfly too. And I guess, that’s how the moon lost its sun.