I, a girl of sixteen, walked painstakingly to the grocery store, wrapped fingertips to toes in cotton wool. I gingerly opened the heavy oak door, causing the overhead bell to jingle obnoxiously. My feet burned already with the incessant blisters I would need to treat later with my bleeding fingers, already cracked from the force of opening the door.
I turned carefully down a crowded aisle and attempted to avoid the inevitable bumping of their skin against mine. I, of course, had trained myself to pretend long ago that I did not feel my skin being torn off with the lightest of friction. The fragility of my butterfly wing skin had caused me constant, unrelenting pain since the very day of my birth. I had subsequently been covered in innumerable salves and bandages since. I arrived at my point of destination and grasped firmly and achingly a large bottle of brandy.
The whiskey on my breath and in the sores of my mouth haunted me as much as the accusatory glares of the customers at my under-aged drunkenness. With some difficulty, I placed the liquor on the shiny counter and the money next to it. The clerk gave me a kind look but I could hardly see it for the burden ahead of me.
I carted home my whiskey and poured myself a glass. Its pungent distraction soaked up the pain from my blistered feet to my exuding finger joints. As it seeped into my heart, taking from it the everyday ache, I assuaged my coiled muscles and began to drift, pouring myself glass after glass as I finished them off.
The burn in my throat was a relief to me. My eyelids blinked heavily and before they closed I saw passing before my bleary vision a free, weightless butterfly, whose wings softer than dust, propelled it along. I shed my lids upon my cheeks and closed my eyes for the last time and the pain faded from me, a smile lingering on my tingling lips.
