green & grey

As I was bent over in the middle of the pavement in town this afternoon, busy prizing out a grasshopper from between the tile cracks, a pink butterfly in the guise of a young girl stopped in her tracks and gazed longingly at the insect now lying in my hand. I asked her if she wanted to have a closer look, without hesitation she grabbed the huge green object and immediately tore off a leg, by accident. Her mother, for she was not walking the streets alone, warned her to be careful. To which the child replied, oh mummy, it doesn't matter, he's dead he can't feel anything anymore.
Throw it into the grass, her mother suggested, please no, I interjected, I'll take it back home with me and introduce him to some other friends of mine; she, the mother that is, must have doubted my sanity, if only for an instant.
The butterfly reluctantly returned the grasshopper and watched closely as I wrapped him in a bit of cellophane I happened to find at the bottom of my bag.
I asked her name, she all of a sudden became very shy, as children up to a certain age do when confronted with such a personal question, her mother answered in her stead. Well, bye for now Bente, take good care of yourself and I'll look after Grasshopper; we went our separate ways.

walking back home from a friend's house where I had dropped off a really nice marine-blue-almost-black cotton shirt, far too nice to cut up for sewing! and as nobody was home I hung it on the clothes line, immediately it belonged there; as I said I was walking back home on top of the dike when I noticed the church spire in the village across the river, I realised I felt comforted by this sight, how odd the atheist in me commented, like the shirt it belongs and with a sudden recognition said to self: I belong here as well after 17 years. At the bottom of the dike I picked up this half-circle pebble to mark the occasion.