HIS COY MISTRESS

a true story of tragic love in a summer garden

by e.j.ward

The yellow brimstone butterfly was beautiful; everything about him breathed life
– intense quivering life – charged with the amorous dance of summer. And he fell
in love of course, that is what he was there for.

Maybe it was her stillness that attracted him; a quaint awkwardness, almost
spastic, helpless and stricken – as if she had been told to stay put and dared not
move. His tender heart was moved to pity. His ceaseless fluttering invited her to
dance, but she was shy, her head bowed slightly in denial, immovable.
She was irresistible – he clung to her dazed and soothed by this impenetrable
calm. She came from a tranquil family; her brothers and sisters were immobile
too – but none had the quaint, dazed, faded look that so appealed to him, for she
was not in the first flush of her youth it must be admitted, and the once bright
orange of her flanks had dimmed to dusky peach.
As the summer wore on day after day he returned helplessly to his cruel beauty,
who seemed unmoved by all the fragile passion of his soul. Imperceptibly the
shadows lengthened as the days grew shorter, and he knew that time was running
out, for he would not have much longer to live. Would she not once respond to his
ardour with a sign of life? Would she not breathe one sigh to recompense the long
hours of helpless attendance on her loveliness?
But then one October morning as the mists of autumn shrouded the quiet garden
and the leaves were turning softly to a rustling gold, tragedy struck. For she was
gone! Inexplicably she and her family had disappeared as though they had never
been. Disconsolately he peered through the window of the shed for a sight of her
– and there was his love, his adored and stricken mistress, now forever dumb,
lying prostrate in a plastic basket along with all the other clothes-pegs, as the
garden darkened in the autumn rain.
(copyright e.j.ward 2021)