The Butterfly Ethic/1

Chapter 1

This wasn't as easy as I had hoped. I was still in the forest, but this one was different. The trees were firs, but that wasn't the only difference. They started growing about fifty feet in the air and worked their way to the ground. I assumed the roots grew last. It seemed the deeper I walked in, the lower the trees grew. The sky seemed to generate its own light despite the lack of a sun, moon, or any stars, but that light was quite dim and gave the forest a blue-ish tint.

I stopped by to examine one of the trees. It was half my height from the ground and the bottom was jagged. The bark had several termite holes drilled into it. I wondered whether or not it would be a good idea to look under and count the rings. It would probably be too dark to see them anyway. I turned around to press onward when something pink caught my eye.

It was a tiny shoe with a Velcro strap. On its side was a logo of a teddy bear. The shoe had a very repugnant smell coming off of it, like someone forgot to put the chicken soup back in the fridge and it sat out for a week. I picked it up and found it to be heavier than it should have been. I looked in the shoe and threw it in disgust.

What is this place''? Heck? No, of course not. I wouldn’t go there. But if it’s not that place, then where am I?

Another presence drew my mind away from pondering. I could feel the phantom standing where the shoe was. Immediately, my mouth filled with the taste of cottage cheese.

''Come on! I have to get out of here! ''I tried to pull up every bit of psi, but that kind of energy only comes under certain circumstances, and a mouthful of cottage cheese is not one of them.

“Hey!” I shouted in fear. “What- Where are you? Who are you?” I mustered more courage in my voice and asked: “Could you take me home?” I realized that it probably couldn’t even if I knew where my home was, but there had to be something around here that could help me.

My father in heaven, please bring me to where I wanted to go, I prayed. I have to get back to 2003. I suddenly knew where to go and ran that way, leaving the whatever-it-was behind. I stopped when I reached a tree that was just above my head, and felt that I had to stand directly under it. I was reluctant to do so, since I wasn’t sure if it would fall and crush me, but the trees hadn’t fallen yet, so standing under one wouldn’t change anything;even if it did, anything was better than here. I stood under the tree. An unknown power surged though me and I was beamed out of the forest and into a void.

Something dawned on me. Up until then, my spirit was confined to my body and mind, but now it seemed to be falling apart like the pieces of a block puzzle. I considered this possibility on those sleepless summer nights in the backyard, but I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. I just had to make it to 2003 with my mind still intact. This was actually quite easy since I was being launched through the time rebound like a rocket plane.

I felt hundreds of different memories from my entire life, things I never knew I did flashing by me in seconds. I wondered if this was what The Lord used to judge people. They came and went until I reached a few memories that weren't even mine.

I suddenly stopped in a dark place. I saw and heard nothing. I now only had the ability to feel the energy of other things.

''Hey, can anyone hear me? I just want to go back through my receiver. Is that too much to ask?'' I shouted through the abyss. Suddenly, my body, or whatever I had in this dimension, pumped up with energy. I can’t really describe what I felt then, but I’ll do my best: It felt like a ninety-foot giant struck me squarely in the solar plexus with a thirty-foot softball bat. I figured whatever I was talking to got annoyed by my disrespectful attitude and kicked me out of there for good.

I felt like I had been dropped off the Sears Tower, but never actually landed on the streets below. I was in a bed that felt like a crappy plastic mattress. I opened my eyes. Sure enough, it was a crappy plastic mattress. At least there was a pillow and sheets, though. After a moment of relaxation, the feeling went away. I sat up and adjusted to my surroundings. It was a hospital room; that was all I was able to grasp. Thinking was something I didn’t want to do at the moment. I think I fell asleep there, but I don’t know for sure. I just remember my mind clearing up a bit. Soon I got up and gazed around the room.

My mother was asleep in a chair next to my bed, something I didn't notice before. My blood suddenly ran cold. She had probably been sitting there worrying about me since my admittance. How long was I there, anyway? I heard someone on the other side of the door and quickly laid back down. I had my eyes open just barely enough to see who came in. It was a doctor. He was black, his hair was gray and he was talking on his cell phone. I was hoping he would tell his friend something about me, but he was only talking about training someone. He reached for a table in the corner of the room and grabbed something, then walked out.

I fell asleep again just after he left. When I awoke, my mother was awake. She did what any good mother would’ve done: embraced me and asked me what happened. I couldn’t say anything, since I wasn’t entirely sure what the flip had happened.

<p style="text-align:center">“The doctor says that by the time you were found, you had hypothermia. The neighbors saw you there and called the police, so naturally, the news is stuffed up with lies about us.”

<p style="text-align:center">“Is this for real?” I asked. She nodded her head. “Do you have the article here?” Mom got out of her chair and got something off of the table. She handed me a copy of the Deseret news.

<p style="text-align:center">“Can you read it?” she asked me.

<p style="text-align:center">“Of course I can.” I muttered. I looked at the date and noticed I only missed one day of school, but any joy I got out of that was squashed when I read the article:

<p style="text-align:center">Polygamist Teen Found Severely Beaten on Front Lawn

<p style="text-align:center">'''It seemed like an ordinary day for Collette Brunel. The morning began with her daily trip for the newspaper, but her morning routine changed. A boy lay on the sidewalk, unconscious and chilled. The thirteen year old child of Tracy Carter was left out for the night and slept outside, locked out of his own home.'''

<p style="text-align:center">'''Police authorities arrived on the scene to discover that not only did Martin have a case of hypothermia, but severe head trauma as well. A further investigation was called, and, though none of the other twelve children have such injuries, they are reported to being left unattended in squalor. Tracy is still on probation for a similar event in 2000, in which her children were taken into custody for three months when a distress call was received from nine year old Freya Carter. Despite Tracy’s promise to take better care of her children, the children are still living in dirty clothes with unkempt rooms. Upon investigation of the Carter household, authorities found open containers of food laid across the kitchen, and mold growing on all of the cabinets. Dirty clothes and rotting food littered the floors in every room.'''

<p style="text-align:center">'''The Luther children are the biological children of Josef Whigfield, the cousin of Soren Whigfield, who just got out of prison for assisting in the abuse of Fourteen year old Roseanne Forsythe in 1997. '''

<p style="text-align:center">'''It has been suggested by members of various anti-polygamy groups that there may be similar abuse taking place in this household and that the children should be submitted to psychological examinations, Haley Fultz, the daughter of Josef's second wife, says that the Whigfield polygamist children are often neglected of basic needs. “The children are often left without clothing or shelter” she says. “Often their education is neglected to a point where basic math is hard for them.” She recommends a thorough search and confiscation of any evidence of abuse, but Sheriff Mike Davis says that it is unlikely that this will happen, though he didn’t state his reasons for believing that.'''

<p style="text-align:center">“Are the kids- Is everyone else still at home?” I asked.

<p style="text-align:center">“Yes, though the DCFS have gone back to bothering us again.” She replied.

<p style="text-align:center">Militant in their unwavering purpose, the Division of Child and Family Services are a polygamist family’s worst nightmare. Since the beginning, every mother in a plural family lived in fear that they would storm their house and abduct their children. I spent three months living with people I didn't even know because of this.

<p style="text-align:center">Haley Fultz was my half-sister, but she and her mother left us. This is ancient history, but so are the claims that we were bad at math. When I was put in a foster home before, Haley tried to prove that I was an idiot, but that’s like trying to prove that Michael Jackson is uncoordinated. They put me through a test to see how stupid I was; I did almost as good as everyone else. I would've outdone them, but at one point I decided to experiment with the scan-tron and find out what happened if you didn't fill in your answers all the way, my results were met with anguish. In spite of that mistake, we still managed to free ourselves from their clutches. But now, it seemed they wanted a rematch.

<p style="text-align:center">“So, do you want to tell me what happened Tuesday night?” mom asked.

<p style="text-align:center">“Um, I don’t really know. I just went outside and fell.” I said.

<p style="text-align:center">“You fell?” she asked.

<p style="text-align:center">“Into a coma I guess.”

<p style="text-align:center">“What were you doing outside, anyway?” she asked.

<p style="text-align:center">“Looking at the stars.” I shrugged. It was a lie, but I wasn’t entirely sure my mom would approve of me traveling back in time without permission.

<p style="text-align:center">“Isn’t it cold out there?” She asked.

<p style="text-align:center">“I don’t freeze very easily.” I said. Everything about her told me she knew I was hiding something. I could’ve just told the truth, but I didn’t want to until I understood what happened that night. Aside from that, telling her what I was doing would cause her to lose sleep over the delusions her son’s been having, so I said nothing more on the topic.

<p style="text-align:center">“So when do I get out of here?” I asked.

<p style="text-align:center">“The doctor needs to have a look at you. If you don’t mind being in here alone, I can go get him.”

<p style="text-align:center">“Can you? That would be good.” I told mom.

<p style="text-align:center">She came back with the doctor I saw before.

<p style="text-align:center">“Hello there, Martin. I’m Doctor Greg Pratt.” I shook his hand. “Your mom was just telling me that you woke up about ten minutes ago.”

<p style="text-align:center">“Yes.” I replied.

<p style="text-align:center">“All right then, you were assigned for a cat-scan when you woke up, it might take a while though. In the meantime I want to ask you a few questions.” I flinched at those words. When a monogamist said that, it usually meant that your answers would soon be used against you in a bigoted courtroom. He paged the x-ray operator and proceeded to ask me questions.

<p style="text-align:center">“Can you tell me the names of everyone in your family?” he asked. I figured he was trying to test my memory.

<p style="text-align:center">“Oldest to youngest?” I asked.

<p style="text-align:center">‘Yes.” He said.

<p style="text-align:center">“Rachel, Patrick, Elisha, me, Freya, Abinadi, Walter, Alise, Tori, Anthony, Aaron, and Ortell.”

<p style="text-align:center">When he was finished, the doctor sent us to the x-ray room on the ground floor. “I’ll be there with you. I just need to check on another patient. Wait for me at the elevator”

<p style="text-align:center">“We will.”

<p style="text-align:center">“Can you walk okay, Martin?” he asked. I got out of the bed to test drive my legs. They felt a bit stiff, but only in a normal way for someone who just had a long sleep. I demonstrated my functional cerebellum to the doctor by walking to the door.

<p style="text-align:center">“Very good.” He said. He walked out the door and to the right while my mom led me in the other direction.

<p style="text-align:center">The hospital wasn’t the busy scrambling of nurses you usually see on shows like ER, it was organized and quiet. Most of the doors we walked by were closed, with a few exceptions to those with visitors. The walls were bare except for a few promotional posters telling doctors to take certain precautions when dealing with the SARS virus.

<p style="text-align:center">Greg came back after about five minutes and took us to the x-ray room on the first floor. Once there, he explained to us what was going on.

<p style="text-align:center">“You see, under normal circumstances, the cerebral cells go through alpha and beta waves at a point of head trauma. They don’t usually go past thirteen cycles. Yours went to 43.68 until late last night when your cerebrum went back to normal rates. This would imply intense involuntary neuron activity, reaching a point where his sensory neurons were forced to stop working.”

<p style="text-align:center">“What?” Mom said.

<p style="text-align:center">“You see, your brain gives off vibrations and- You know what, I’ll break it down for you.” He sighed. “The waves given off by the brain show how hard you’re thinking. During periods of meditation and heavy motor functions, the frequency increases.”

<p style="text-align:center">“So he was meditating?” Mom asked.

<p style="text-align:center">“It was more like a forced meditation.” Dr. Pratt told her. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s as though his mind needed to sort something out and shut off all other functions to do it.”

<p style="text-align:center">“What do you think caused it?” Mom asked.

<p style="text-align:center">“You might know.” He said as he pointed to me.

<p style="text-align:center">“I can’t really remember.” I replied. At this point, I really wished I wasn’t there. There was no way these doctors could tell me what was going on.

<p style="text-align:center">“It’s understandable if you can’t.” Pratt told me. “You did hit your head out there, that’s why we need to do a cat-scan. Some of the other doctors think that may have been what caused you to lose consciousness.”

<p style="text-align:center">“Do you?” I asked him.

<p style="text-align:center">“No. I think you lost consciousness before you fell, but I don’t know exactly why you lost consciousness in the first place. Maybe we’ll find out more with the x-ray.” He left us alone in the room, which was more like a neglected greenhouse. All around us were ferns, trees, poinsettias, and daisies, all in their own pots and most of them half-dead. It was as if they were trying to grow a certain type of garden, but kept reweighing their options. On the wall, there was a picture of a bald eagle soaring over a pine forest at dusk. Below it, an inscription read

<p style="text-align:center">Discovery

<p style="text-align:center">Discovery isn’t seeking new lands, but seeing with new eyes.

<p style="text-align:center">I studied this poster until the doctor returned.

<p style="text-align:center">“The machine’s ready for you.” He said. “But first, you’ll need to sign a waiver.”

<p style="text-align:center">“Waiver, what for?” Mom asked him.

<p style="text-align:center">“Just so you don’t sue if the x-ray kills him.” Said doctor Pratt. “Nothing personal, my brother in Wyoming does the same thing when he sells firecrackers to kids.”

<p style="text-align:center">“It doesn’t kill people.” I told him.

<p style="text-align:center">“Sure it does, ever heard of the Curies? They died by X-rays.”

<p style="text-align:center">“They didn’t know back then.”

<p style="text-align:center">“Can’t you take a joke?” he chuckled.

<p style="text-align:center">“Sure, except for when a doctor tells it.” I replied.

<p style="text-align:center">“Well sorry, my sense of humor is what gets me through my job.” He said. “Now come on, the x-ray’s perfectly safe, as long as you put on the jacket.”

<p style="text-align:center">“To protect from radiation?” I asked.

<p style="text-align:center">“Bingo.” He replied. He led me into a room that was entirely empty except for a bench. “And don’t look directly at the x-rays.” He told me just before walking into the next room. He was now sealed away behind a lead wall. I could see him operating the machine from his computer through a window.

<p style="text-align:center">Don’t look directly at the x-rays. I couldn’t tell if those words were serious or just another joke. It should be illegal for doctors to employ sarcasm, not that they’d let that stop them anyway. It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t know exactly where the x-ray machine was. I glanced around the room, trying to locate the scanner before it shot rays at me. I found it just as it scanned my eyes. Or, at least, I think it did. I couldn’t tell for sure but I think I felt the rays shoot through my eyes. The scanner was the very last thing I saw in 20/20 vision. After a couple of minutes in which I would assume he scanned my head a few more times, Dr. Pratt brought me out of the room and explained his findings. It turned out that the loss of consciousness was most likely not caused by the fall, and I suffered minimal damage. He concluded that my memories of what had happened would return to me any time between a few weeks and a few months.