Two Stories for Today

The first is about my International Student ID Card:


A while back, when I had to stop by a local clinic to pick up some anti-allergens, a somewhat-bilingual nurse asked for my ID. Having little else on me, I gave her my International Student ID Card. After a looking at it for a handful of seconds and typing some things into her computer, she asked if my last name was “Kalamazoo” or “College.”

The second story actually happened recently. While going to school walking the same route I walk every day, I happened across a butterfly on the ground. It was small, but absolutely beautiful. The lower three-quarters of its white-fringed wings were jet black, but it had a stunning stripe of blue-green glimmering on the top, which stretched over its pleasantly fuzzy thorax. Its head was an aquamarine, and its eyes were black and trusting. Understand that I cannot stress enough the magnificence of the blue flash across its wings! It would catch even the most miniscule sunbeam and radiate it back with threefold the intensity and wonder!

It stayed on my hand during the entire 20-minute walk to school, patiently content with my slow ambulation. What miracles of nature or spirit must have occurred to birth this splendid and pacifistic flyer! Throughout the walk, I thought of what transcendental symbolism this miraculous insect could represent. How I spotted Beauty along a too-familiar path. How, with patience and dedication, I was able to hold and keep Beauty through my journey, and that Beauty would stay with me, no matter where I went.

When I arrived at school and showed the butterfly to my classmates, but they were unimpressed. They all said a snide, “I thought you’re not allowed to touch animals anymore, Brandon?” But I knew I possessed Beauty, and that Beauty could never harm me physically. It was ok that they didn’t appreciate it, too, because Beauty is more personal than any other attribute, and this blue-black paradigm was all the more beautiful because it was Beauty only to me. But by caging Beauty you smother it, and I set it outside the windowsill to fly free. But fly it did not! Instead, it waited on the window, looking into the classroom (specifically at me, I’m sure) with its understanding compound eyes. Because the best kinds of Beauty don’t fly away. The best kinds of Beauty persist. I had this fantastic image of me walking out the front entrance of the university into the radiant sunlight after delivering an impeccable presentation, and the butterfly trickling down from the third-floor window like a winged sundrop to land weightlessly on my shoulder and accompany me home.

Then, in the middle of the first presentation, a bird flew up and ate it off the window.