She now knew the butterfly effect could produce a loon in her office.

But did the converse also hold true? She closed her eyes and concentrated, and the room filled with the rush of fluttering wings. One brushed the side of her face, impossibly gentle. When she opened her eyes, they were gone.

Almost. One bright monarch perched on the tendril of wisteria which snaked its way up her house, around the outside of her window, as though it wanted to bloom inside. The monarch regarded her solemnly, its wings moving like breathing, and then it lifted into the air and flew away.

What we breathe out, the trees breathe in. What they breathe out, we breathe in. The notion satisfied her. Butterflies breathe, and mint plants. The lettuces beneath their mesh, and the rabbits which skirt them, hungry.

Sometimes the internet seems to breathe. One person posts, and then another in response. She could sit solitary at her computer, facing the green world outside her windows, and never feel entirely alone. The thrum of conversation is perennial. We pick up the threads and follow them to the center of one labyrinth or another, and then we are gone, but the labyrinth remains.

The woman in leggings and a striped hand-me-down shirt scuffed her feet against the floor, contemplating the posting of comments, the flapping of tiny wings.

With her bright visitors gone, it seemed as though she ought to feel bereft, but she didn't. She felt blessed.

This is the fourteenth post in an online came of Consequences. Each post begins with the last line of the previous post; is (meant to be) 250 words long; and is on the theme of the individual within the community, or something along those lines.

Previous posts: No man is an island, Entire of itself, A part of the main, To belong, Be-longing, Expats, or la vie en rosé, Ex-hale, No Contest, Consequences, Consequences 10, Consequences 11, Follow the consequences, and Consequences 13. The series will conclude at Hydragenic, where it began, in a day or two.

Technorati tags: blogs, consequences.