Black Butterflies

Author: Anonymus

Yellow butterflies are said to be the symbol of Colombian literature, yet I do not recall having seen one.

I could reminisce about a prevalent struggle caused by the world I inhabit. My surroundings continue to be full of open, blue skies, with a few rainy days before the grass can turn its greenest green. It was home, and the feeling of hope was growing in me. At least it was trying to do so.

Mother called me Naia. Papa did too when he was on Earth. My name is Naiara. I grew up in a small house in Tuluá, Valle del Cauca, with my mother Amalia. I just refer to her as "Mama." It even rhymes with her name. Almost.

Mama is the only person I am brave enough to admit my love to. Still, I am aware of her presence somehow. After my first heartbreak, I was unable to love anything else. My dreams usually bring up an image from two years ago. Mama was not cooking lunch, as she was usually doing everyday, after I crossed the river as fast as I could to return home, as I usually did every single day.

After three days had passed since her disappearance, a woman approached me in school.

"There were violent killings in your neighborhood over the past few days, luck is on your side" she said to me. I was sad and furious at how little life was valued. I could keep hoping that Mama was still breathing, but I wondered how it had all begun to be a matter of life and death. Later, I found out Mama was not the only one to disappear from our town. Some of my friends had lost track of their parents as well.

I was confused before I finally came to understand the current conflict in which we were not direct participants, not even in terms of holding a political perspective. In school, with the little time we had left, they explained how the military invested much of its time in taking people away from their homes, rather than finding a possible solution to the terrible chaos they were causing. Of course, civilians did not matter. My mama did not matter. She was considered to be a member of a minority, whose life and family were vulnerable and had no voice.

Three months after Mama went missing, I was almost a year away from turning 18, and I had no one left to look after me, at least not for a year. I could not even attend the same school anymore, which caused a feeling of hatred towards those community workers who took me to temporary houses to live in, where I knew no one.

I had immense power over myself when I was a little kid, and I intend to retain it at 19, as all my friends growing up did after what happened to us. Of course other cases, where people had lost everything, intrigued my double standards into reflecting whether my family was indeed struggling, or whether I had been given a second chance to enjoy a normal youth, and luck had indeed been on my side