In memory it remained indomitable and black, only ever glimpsed with the right kind of eyes. Small eyes that saw in pixels. Unrefined animal eyes that saw in only shades of grey and motion. It was especially revealed in strange edges of visions when an eye did not look directly at the mountain, but to the side of it. In the periphery, sharp planes and time-worn but geometric shapes played in the margins between vista and simple brain.
The Monarch butterflies remembered the mountain, mostly because it was hard to forget something you could still see. In the foreign light of their insect eyes, the mountain still stood. Indomitable, and a bit blurred about the edges as if swathed in a mist. However, the sun shown upon its frozen, jagged planes and lines, and it sometimes winked a knowing brilliant gleam from an inky black and glinting jet facet.
It was not a kind place, nor had it ever been such. The butterflies that stopped there to rest were sometimes just gone the next morning. The massive clumps that hung in trees like overburdened grape vines depleted in numbers overnight. There was no sign of fallen butterflies upon the ground. They were simply vanished. The remainder of the flight would then take off as a rather truncated flock, no longer a glorious spectacle in a cloud of color with the gentle susurration of millions of wings. Instead, the sound was that of a rustle of some dozen satin ball gowns as small orange clouds curled away like smoke into the mists.
Once those survivors were gone, no eyes were left to notice the butterflies remaining behind the wine-dark glass, each flying frantically in an attempt to reach the sunlight and their fellows. Following the instinct to fly, they battered their own wings and wore down their stored nutrients. They slowed and then stopped like a child's toy as the battery runs low. Nothing outside the glass was left to witness the battered insects give in to the cold inside the mountain. Each by each, they tipped over and fell dead. The mountain fed and was sated.
With enough years and generations, the island had culled out the butterflies that would rest upon that mountain. Over the ages, the tiny minds of butterflies became hard wired against stopping on the island overnight. Their minuscule memories or, perhaps seeing the mountain in the far distance somehow dissuaded them, so they flew on. The Monarchs changed their route of travel and did not stop. The lighter than paper insects began taking their pass over the lake as one long flight. It was grueling but that was somehow better. The new route created some loss, but ameliorated the yearly decimation of their species.
The stream of southward flying amber and black wings would suddenly turn at 90 degrees east and fly for about five miles. After that, their course with abruptly correct to south and the creatures that hardly possessed a brain and had never flown this migration path somehow knew precisely where to go and where to avoid.
Between the coming of people and the departing of the butterflies, other species, mostly small mammals, birds and fish would try to make a go at a colony on this island seemingly without predators.With smaller populations, the mountain needed to wait for there to be enough living creatures, breeding creatures and extra creatures that some could just become lost as they slunk, or crawled, or fluttered, or hopped, or swam around their home island of black glass and basalt. The diet of the mountain dwindled and year by year it became a bit harder to see. Misty, sliding further into the periphery of the eye and also curling in upon itself in some atrophy of starvation.
Humans have always had a difficult time arguing with any disparity between eye and mind. The changed course of millions of butterflies was quite noticeable, but it took humans rather a long time to notice since the navigation of the Monarchs took place far out in a deep lake. Humans had few vantage points from which one might glimpse this spectacle and most of those were boats.
And thus, via boats, early people came to this strange island. The first people were of the oldest tribes who searched for good hunting, fishing or resources. None of those were found save shards of black glass that could be chipped and flaked into wickedly keen edged weapons. Unlike with the small animals, the tribal people noticed when fewer people returned and boarded their boats at the end of the day than had disembarked in the morning.
They searched until the sun was setting, the light burning gold over the black planes and angles of the rock, blinding the searchers. When no trace of the missing was found, they retired to their boats and moved further out into the water. Lashing their crafts together for the night, they passed a solemn and near silent night on the water. In the morning, they searched again and saw only strange reflections of their own faces, reflected back with rippled details that sometimes did not look like their own visage, but rather that of the missing.
There is something that reads as deeply wrong to the human mind when you look into a reflecting surface and note that your reflection does not precisely mirror the actions of your own body. The head in the mirror turns slower, the smile lasts too long, the expression in the face is not your own or someone is standing behind you but that image exists only in the faces of the obsidian and there is no one behind you when you turn to check.
Thus, the first peoples left and told stories of terrible loss and a mountain of death to any who would journey to this black island of nothing but sharp edges, pain and loss. The mountain sat for many ages and again became hungry again. From Black Island, one might notice the occasional rumble like thunder from far beneath the mountain. The very earth there growled, considering releasing a bit of magma from the center volcano but usually only managed a few wispy belches of smoke. From time to time, a group of brave men in small boats would come and try to prove themselves against the island. They were not victorious in anything but feeding a nameless monster that contentedly returned to slumber when the few surviving voyagers ran screaming toward their boats in hasty departure.
Many years passed and the mountain noticed boats. Large boats. Large boats that must hold many people. As the mountain was invisible to most eyes, the larger ships just did not come its way. Somewhere in the black heart of a black volcano, amid the chorus of weeping voices in many languages, an idea emerged. The mountain consolidated to one last tall peak. Pulling back the energy of the many lives that bound the island together, the outlying volcanoes, the young ridges of obsidian began to crack and with just a single year of ice and heat, they crumbled into the water forming an inconspicuous shoal in an otherwise very deep channel of the giant lake.
The last volcano slipped almost entirely behind a veil of mist and shadow and light and illusion and discomfort to any eye that might land upon it. Black Island, above and below the water line, waited and it was quite ready. Those ships did come. Oh, yes. Full of people and treasures, they ran at speed through the deep channel night and day. Most were lucky. Others were not.
With a keel torn asunder, rudders detached and holes sliced through the hull by sharp volcanic glass, there was very little time for the people on board to make decisions. Some ships began their sinking right there where the damage occurred. Sometimes survivors of these accidents would see the Black Island and swim furiously for its shores. Washing up on the sharp, black shore, they called themselves lucky for a little while. Soon, concerned with the lack of fresh water, game, vegetation or cover they grew anxious about how they might survive until rescue. They needn't have worried. Soon they were just reflections in the midnight glass.
Others went down with their ships and were probably the lucky ones, unless that ship sank at the roots of the black shoal. In that case, they just became rippling faces in the midnight glass facets that were underwater.
Wrecks small and large would be shifted away to deeper places in the lake. The shoal would sometimes rearrange itself to be much lower like a channel but in an entirely new spot. The peaks of the shoal would then be found closer to the formerly safe passages, sometimes just 20 feet beneath the waterline. The perfect depth for snagging a moderately drafting boat that had considered itself safe to run at speed. Oh, how the wood would cracks and shatters, and upon hearing those sounds, the hungry black glass would let itself be glimpsed by the ship wrecked humans.
The island did not know how much or what it had eaten. It was just a monster of rock and intent. A darkling maw waiting for the next bit of prey to arrive. The prey always came. It still does sometimes. The mountain remains hidden and sated. The ships remain sunken and full of fish and death. The black windows of obsidian below and above the water line can still be viewed with so many pairs of eyes of so many species trying to look out.
But, the butterflies can see the mountain. They have not forgotten to cross the immense lake and make no stops. They fly south, then east, then south again and are precise in their directions.
Copy write 2019, Kristen Gilpin
All Rights Reserved
Sources and Inspiration:
NOTE: The pop articles state something very different than the scientific articles. Lincoln Brower does not ever suggest a giant mountain, rather how flyways develop around obstacles. But a mountain that could 'go away' with little trace. to me, means volcano. Sure enough, Lake Superior's Superior Shoal is a massive conglomeration of basaltic lava flows which are mostly well below the center of the lake- except that pesky part that is only 6 meters below the surface of the lake near a busy shipping channel. So here we have butterflies, a missing mountain, 20 square miles of underwater shoal and debris, a area previously volcanic active and a rift which can sweep away rather a lot of rocky mess. To me, this equals a story
1. Gizmodo Article (2013)
2. MONARCH BUTTERFLY ORIENTATION: MISSING PIECES OF A MAGNIFICENT PUZZLELINCOLN P. BROWERDepartment of Zoology, University of Florida,Gainesville, FL 32611, USAThe Journal of Experimental Biology 199, 93–103 (1996) 93Printed in Great Britain © The Company of Biologists Limited 1996JEB0122
3. Lincoln Brower (1931-2018) Memorial
4. From Wikipedia: The Superior Shoal is a geologic shoal of approximately 20 square miles (52 km2) located 50 miles (80 km) north of Copper Harbor, Michigan in the middle of Lake Superior, the highest point of which lies only 21 feet (6.4 m) below the lake's surface.[1] The shoal is a hump of Keweenawan basaltic lava flows with ophitic interiors and amygdaloidal tops in an otherwise deep part of the lake, and though fishermen had known of its existence for generations it was only officially charted in 1929 by the United States Lake Survey.[2]:193 It has been theorized that the World War I French minesweepers Inkerman and Cerisoles, which disappeared during their maiden voyage on Lake Superior in mid-November 1918, may have run aground on this shoal[2]:192 and some have theorized that it may have been to blame for both the disappearance of the "Flying Dutchman of the Great Lakes" on November 21, 1902 and the sinking of the "Titanic of the Great Lakes" on November 10, 1975 (the SS Bannockburn and SS Edmund Fitzgerald, respectively).[3][4] It is one of the known off-shore spawning and foraging habitats for the juvenile lean lake trout.
5. Monarch Butterfly Migration: A Mystery Of The Natural World - HD Documentary
3 comments:
Beautifully written. Butterflies and mountains. The small and the mighty combined. Elegant and powerful.
Wow. You AWE me!
I love this story. Thank you!
Post a Comment