Fiction: The butterfly - now properly translated from the Portuguese original

Almada, March 27th 1999

I walked down the dirty streets of the city that had seen me born, grow and almost despair.

I looked at the grey walls that appeared to say almost everything, without ever having such ambition. The walls were the same as always and the screams that echoed in my head as well.

All of a sudden, something happened. The walls got filled with colour, several colours, many colours, I don't remember which.

The screams disappeared and I only heard beautiful laughter: sweet and pure.

Pure, immensely pure, simply pure. Laughter of those who don't expect anything in return, of those who know that we live, not because we expect everything, but because we expect something.

And what "something" was that? What something was now able to fulfil me?

I didn't know. I didn't want to know. I now accepted life with the same ingenuity with which the baby accepts the milk from his mother's breast.

I didn't want anything, but just "something".

I just wanted to be reborn.

And I was finally able to.

Can the butterfly fly?

Maybe, but even if it can't, it is certainly beautiful.