flash nonfic by justin finley

I Saw (Excerpt)

I saw an orange butterfly at my grandfather’s funeral in Alto, Louisiana. Just as the obituary was read, its small legs landed on my brother’s finger like it knew to be there at this very specific day and time. I felt like an asshole looking at the wings of a butterfly instead of at my father’s father being put in the ground. The butterfly lifted and hovered in slow circles, resembling the goodbyes someone gives at the end of the summer barbecues. The lower the coffin got, the higher the butterfly rose in the wind on wings of orange, black, and white like stained glass windows. I was never a spiritual person, and still find myself looking for a way to explain the unexplainable. My grandfather didn’t say goodbye that day. He said hello again.

I saw the first, black president when I was 11 years old. The morning Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America, my mom came home from work wearing a shirt with his face on it. We talked about it at school the entire day. I couldn’t even spell “politician” at the time, but I knew there had never been a president that looked like me until that day. Barack and I aren’t twins in the face, but I see more of myself in him than Abraham Lincoln. 

I saw the first orange president, too, but I’m hoping we can all just pretend that never happened.

I saw a food fight at summer camp that only ended after crying could be heard. Someone got hit in the face by a full, cold carton of chocolate milk.

I saw bathrooms without toilet paper as a fate worse than hell. The worst time was when two friends and I had jumped off of the plane during a 12-hour layover and taken the train to the Shibuya area of central Tokyo. As I stepped off of the train, I could feel the airline’s food melting my insides, like a blow torch was being taken to plastic toys. I ran into the nearest café, finding only despair in the absence of toilet paper. I didn’t know if I should call for help or get ready to take off one of my socks. In the end, I tore a page from my nearly-full journal where I had listed topics on an essay I had to write for history class the month before. When I tell this story, I always start with, “Did I ever tell you about the time I had to wipe with notes detailing the Spartan’s combat strategies?”

I never saw how someone could make conclusions about people based solely on their zodiac sign. Who am I to say someone is a negative person because they’re a Scorpio?

I saw lightning crackle in blue and white veins across the spring sky. This would often scare me into retreating under my blankets.

I saw what happened to Sandra Bland, and I started thinking about all the things that could go wrong listening someone’s advice of, “just listen to the police!”

I saw the beginning of the Nintendo Wii and millions of broken TVs when from the controllers slipped out of your hand as you were playing tennis.

I never saw a worm crawl out of a hole in an apple, so how was the hole made in the first place? Was a laser shot from miles away? Did the apple pickers at the orchards drill their own holes to get a peek inside? I guess this is one of the many wonders that reside in the produce section of Target.

I saw farts made from hands tucked under damp armpits in the “auditorium” that was actually just the school gymnasium, old, white, plastic chairs aligned in rows.

I saw young faces screaming into electric fans to give their voices the metallic distortion of an evil, android destroyer.

I saw mall Santa pull off his beard and scratch an itch that should never be scratched in the public as he headed to the parking lot at the end of his shift.

I saw the smoke from California wildfires travel to Utah on the wind and settle over Bear Lake just outside of Garden City, Idaho.

I never saw the acid inside of batteries that everyone said could burn holes through your hands and multiple wooden floors when I was a kid.

I saw the rest of the room yawn after I did, but still can’t put my finger on if it’s really contagious or not.

I saw a pocket-full of hermit crabs at the beach; I thought I was collecting seashells to bring back home at the end of my trip when I felt moving in my pocket. A crawling sensation from multiple little legs. I slapped my pocket, and the motion stopped. I ran into the ocean and removed my shorts, turning them upside down. The hermit crabs looked like Titanic survivors falling from my shorts into the cold saltwater.

I saw my first friend request on Myspace from Tom: the multi-millionaire and creator of the site who had the most boring profile to view.

I saw boyfriends on bag duty zombie-limping behind their girlfriends, carrying purchases from seven or more different stores. On one trip to Victoria’s Secret with my girlfriend, I was finally inducted into the congregation of bag-carrier men after I’d spent more than an hour there. “Welcome to the void, bro,” the tallest one said as he offered his hand for a shake. His name was Tyler, and he had been the first boyfriend trapped in “the void” as he called it. There were about five other guys behind him playing cards on a bench next to a total of twenty-three shopping bags. “First time?” he asked me as my eyes widened as the pile of bags. “Something like that . . . we usually shop online.” I said. He pointed to his friend in a brown, leather jacket, “Gabe has been here for two hours and shopping with his girl for four.” Gabe looked up with no soul behind his eyes, then looked back down at his cards. “And me . . . ” Tyler said, “I’ve been here so long that me and the manager know each other . . . BY FIRST NAME!” His eye began to twitch just as I got a Ready to check out :) text, and I told him so long. “Saved by the bell,” Tyler said as he resumed his place on the bench and mouthed to me, “SEND HELP!”

I saw several haunted houses that couldn’t even frighten a newborn. A lot of poorly applied make up on teens that looked like they would rather be at the mall instead just isn’t that frightening. A witch even rolled her eyes at me after I laughed when she jumped from a doorway covered in blood that looked like strawberry syrup.

I saw an online ad for hot singles in my area while I was typing my first essay in the fourth grade. My partner and I were doing a history report on Jackie Robinson, and I could never stop those annoying pop-up, ad squares of stuff I didn’t need from appearing on my screen.

I saw jackhammers break apart concrete like sections of chocolate bars.

I saw at least 200, nude participants of the World Naked Bike Ride heading through the heart of Lincoln Park.

I never saw a bee stab its stinger into me until a month before my 24th birthday. I had avoided beehives at barbecues my entire life just to have one fly into my boot on a hike to Bloomington Lake.

I saw scalpers selling overpriced concert tickets outside of The Vic for more than three times the original cost. The scalpers always had a friend with them that was selling fake, tour shirts, snacks, and small bottles of UV Blue vodka out of a heavy-duty, Hefty, trash bag.

I saw all of the year 2020 from behind a face mask with a mini bottle of hand sanitizer in my pocket after the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Graduations were cancelled, three weeks off work turned into layoffs, and heads turned if anyone coughed in public.

I saw the city of Baguio in the mountains of the Philippines. When we went out on the balcony for morning coffees, the clouds were around us instead of above us.

I saw Bates military shoes “polished” with Vaseline and baby oil to pass inspection day at military school. Some days, you’d even see someone spitting on their shoes in repeated globs of loogies, hoping to smear it across enough to fool the Colonel and Master Sergeant. If you were caught, your grade would be lower than a grave by the end of the day. I purposely bought a pre-polished pair of Bates with my brother-in-law. Lucky for me, he and my sister had lived on a few different military bases with Air Force, uniform stores.

I never dissected a frog in biology class. One of my lab partners had a ball playing with the intestines like he was forking around with ramen noodles. I handled the anatomy labeling on the handout worksheet. 

I saw Gucci Mane release multiple mixtapes from jail after he was locked up in 2014. I discovered he had pre-recorded over one hundred songs before he was taken away. When he made phone calls and received visitors, he would tell them which songs he wanted on upcoming releases. His career never, never halted while he was in jail. He released more music in the two years he was in prison than any of my favorite, free artists.

I saw sandcastle trenches dug with plastic sporks pulled from Wendy’s and Potbelly’s paper bags at Ohio Street Beach.

I saw dollhouses and remember being jealous that it wasn’t the norm for boys to play with miniature mansions.

I saw gas station, Rhino, sex-enhancement pills that guaranteed erections longer than three hours, and an increased desire for intimacy. I heard a man in Detroit had to buy a new dick after taking them for a few months, and another had a heart attack.

I saw faces slammed firmly into cakes, like the stamping of a letter, on birthdays. A new cake would be brought out later after the mess was cleared and we made sure no one’s nose was broken.

I saw an eraser rubbed down on skin until it receded into the top of the pencil, like a turtle slipping its head into its shell. The “eraser challenge” was the latest of self-harming antics that kids were participating in to go viral at the time. The challenge’s rules were that you had to scrape an eraser back and forth on your arm until you finished reciting the alphabet. The only prize you got was the scar from the friction burn at the end and a few views online.

I saw a love letter stuffed into my desk after gym one evening. When I flipped it over to the back to see if it was signed, a phone number was listed. It was 773-202-LUNA, the number from the carpet commercials.

I never saw the “Bring Your Child to Work Day” that I had waited on for years. There’s a constant curiosity when you’re a child regarding where your parents work. I would sit, thinking on end about where my parents ate lunch at, kept the staplers, and what they talked to their coworkers about.

I saw the Nabisco factory on seventy-third & Kedzie Avenue that always made half the neighborhood smell like the collective aroma of Chips Ahoy, Teddy Grahams, Oreos, and Fig Newtons twenty-four hours a day. I often rolled down the car window whenever I passed the factory to take it all in.

Justin Finley is a writer from Chicago, IL who loves the color sea foam green. He began writing after creating an index card comic book in an elementary school science class and studied Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. He writes about people, places, and personas. Sometimes real and sometimes not.