Ineffable

By Kay Severinsen

I heard some scuffling in the night, but thought I dreamt it. This morning, I discovered the source.

Jan is standing in the middle of my new West Elm rug, kicking off the last remnants of her cocoon. You’d expect it to be dry and flaky, but the cocoon is leaking some gooey fluid. I haven’t seen my roommate in six weeks and am so overcome I’m shaking. She survived. This really happened.

I barely notice the goo soaking into the rug. “You made it! It actually worked! How are you feeling?”

Jan shrugs, her new wings sticking. “I’m good.” Her voice is different; squeakier. “A little woozy. But look at this!”

She shakes her whole body. The wings, still dark and damp, writhe together in a clump, then slowly widen just a little behind her.

Her new body is shimmering in the morning sunlight coming through one of our only windows. This process required nudity.

 “Uh, are you cold or anything? Can I get you something? A blanket? Water maybe?”

“Oh, yes, water, please!” When I bring her a drink, her new probiscis quivers as it unrolls. She dips it, snorting. I look away.

“Yeah, that’s new,” she says. “They explained it all to me, but that was six weeks ago, I think, right? Has it been six weeks?”

It will be six weeks tomorrow, I say. I thought I had one more day to prepare myself. But I don’t say that. “Do you need me to turn on the ceiling fan to help you dry off?”

She tips her shiny black head to one side. “Maybe. But set it low.”

Her colors are becoming more vivid.

“What species did you pick, exactly?”

“Swallowtail. Can you tell?”

The only butterfly I can identify is a monarch. I should have brushed up on this before she came out of her bedroom closet, where she’s been hanging like a huge mummy since Labor Day. I flip on the ceiling fan. It lurches, scattering dust motes into the sunbeam.

Swallowtails, she tells me, represent the grace and free nature of the ineffable human soul. “Also,” she adds, “hope, endurance, change and life.”

Wondering what ineffable means, I bring her a whole pitcher of water sweetened with honey, as my instructions stated, and over the next half hour, she slurps it up. Her torso is drying to a dusky silver with a creamy stripe down each side. Her wings are in constant motion, stretching out, folding back like a Spanish fan, fluttering, creaking. She doesn’t try to sit down and I think that’s best; she could crush her new wings.

“I’ll be flying soon!” she croaks.

I want to share her enthusiasm but I’m struggling with this change. Wondering how we’ll go to the bars now.

I remember the day she told me she was thinking of doing this. Species transformation is getting more popular, but still, so many risks. Why, I asked her.

“I’ve always wanted to fly,” she explained. “I’d rather fly than anything else. Even if I don’t have long as a butterfly, I would have wings. Wings, Sam! Can you imagine?”

I couldn’t imagine, is what I didn’t say. That conversation came and went, and I had assumed she had decided against such a life-altering move. Until the day she came home with something for me to sign.

“I can save $2,000 by doing this at home, but I have to verify that someone is here, that I’m not alone,” she explained. “Can you please do this? It would mean everything to me.”

I attended a class on Tending Transforming Patients, which required that I check her temperature every day through a tiny hole in the cocoon, then record all my findings on the TTP app. I couldn’t have anyone over or tell anyone. I was desperately worried at first that she would die in the closet, then worried sleepless that she might come out grotesque or without her wings.

Now her wings are almost dry. They are fantastically beautiful; black with shimmering blue and red spots, the tips at the bottoms of each wing still damp and curled like a treble clef. She turns her back to me and spreads them wide; together she has a span nearly as wide as our couch.

“Sam, can you find the drying instructions?”

 “Wait one to two hours,” I read. “Fanning wings gently. Do not force any of the wing sections apart if they are still damp since this may cause permanent damage to the scales.” I look at the clock. “It’s been a little over an hour.”

She paces our small living room, stretching and spreading her wings. She accidentally knocks over a floor lamp but catches it quickly with one of her new talon-like hands.

“Do you want to go outside and find a good place for your launch? I’ll go with you.”

She has a new way of walking. Still upright, but her knees are bent, her new, long abdomen bouncing near the floor. She follows her trail of cocoon pieces back into her bedroom and I hear her rummaging. Finally she returns wearing running shorts and trying to fasten her exercise tracker onto her new, tinier wrist.

“Think this will work with flying? It doesn’t have a flying setting!” We both kind of laugh. She unplugs her cell phone where it has been charging for six weeks and slides it into the zipper pocket on her shorts. We head to our courtyard.

She climbs into the landscaping, where a few late-season roses are dropping their petals. With both her feet on a rock, she spreads her magnificent wings wide. I’m almost envious. She looks radiant. “Jan! You look so….”  I can’t even think of the words.

Thanks for your help, she whispers, her voice thinner now. I wonder if her voice will be completely gone soon. That’s one possible side effect.

I aim my phone and start the video; she flaps. Rises up fast on a sudden cool gust. Then she’s higher, coasting on a current, soaring, testing. A few laps around the courtyard, and she drops awkwardly down beside me.

She pokes my ear with her proboscis in a sort of butterfly kiss. “I’ll be back, I promise.”

The last I see of her is her shiny body, her fluorescent green running shorts, and her beautiful red spots, bright against the sky. Awe and terror battle in my mind. I can’t help it; I punch, “swallowtail lifespan,” into my phone.

Ten to 30 days, it says.