Page 107 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2
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well-‐developed hooked ankles and feet to the cotton cloth of her tee shirt. Because my fingers are
small I was best qualified to softly, softly unfurl the stubborn shroud of muck from the fragile body.
Holding my breath I peeled layer after layer until I could see the structures of form, a long brown body,
large dark eyes, two pairs of magnificent, delicately netted wings, now crumpled and stiff.
After I had stripped away most of the filaments binding her legs and the first of several layers of fiber
from her wings, the still-‐encumbered creature made an attempt to fly. The flight consisted of a yard
long head-‐over-‐heels somersault to the ground, testifying to the fact that the second layer of muck,
which had dried by now on the wings, was weighting them down and had caused their usually
transparent fabric to crinkle into what amounted to an aerodynamic crisis. The dragonfly raised not the
slightest protest when Kris picked up her upside down body and placed her again on her own broadly
human left shoulder.
I went back to my restoration work, aware that drastic measures were indicated (to solve?) for the
crinkled, disabled wings. I pulled another layer or two from the body, and tenderly worked a few more
strands from under the wings, of which she had two pairs. The coating on top of the usually
transparent wings had now completely dried and looked to be a permanent cement, rippling their thin
surfaces like bent airplane propellers.
I set aside my fears that I would tear the fragile, brilliant instruments of flight and remembered the
bottle of water always tucked into the pocket of my golf bag, along with extra balls, an old glove and a
bag of raisins that had petrified in the heat. In a hurry, I raised the water bottle over the wing, aware of
watchful dragonfly eyes, The sight of the bottle’s metal form looming overhead immediately set off a
creature alarm and her second attempt to fly. Again, flight was a breath-‐taking failure as the dragonfly
catapulted head-‐over-‐transom onto the dry California earth. Again, Kris leaned down and picked her
up, and again, the shoulder was solace and hope, as hooked feet dug in.
Now I became cognizant of a strong current of awareness beaming toward my eyes, and emanating
from what looked like a little square organ on the dragonfly’s head. I became certain that she was in
touch with me, was thinking, and not only thinking, contacting me somehow with her thinking.
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