2/3/12

The Dragon Fly Girl
By Linda M. Crate


She collected dragonflies the way some people would collect sea shells, bottled ships, arrowheads, or buttons. She had all types: real, glass, metal, jeweled, fabric, and so on and so-forth. Some people found her collection rather disconcerting.

Her eyes were bright teal like ocean waves, her long thick strawberry blonde hair was always caught in plaits behind her back that reached her buttocks, and she had a dainty ethereal aura about her as if she had been a faerie in a past life.

When her boyfriend asked her about her obsession, she couldn’t believe that the answer weren’t obvious. “They don’t bite, they don’t sting, they’re just pretty painted things,” she insisted, dusting off the wings of one of her metal specimens. It was a hair pin that she had not worn in quite some time.

“So are butterflies,” he answered. “They don’t bite or sting, either.”

She snorted. “But every girl likes butterflies,” she said, simply. “I like dragonflies.”

“I don’t understand you,” he finally quipped.

She smiled. “It’s okay,” she said, serenely. “Most people don’t.” With that, she climbed out of her window and atop the porch, watching the dragonflies bend and dip into the water, hoping they would have the sense to avoid the mouths of the hungry fish washing them from below the depths of the waters.

“April, wait!” he cried. He climbed after her. “What are you doing?”

“Watching the dragonflies.” She turned to face him. “It’s okay that you don’t understand why I like dragonflies. I don’t understand why you like watching horse races. To me, they’re perfectly boring. They run and run and run and run, the only different outcome is the winner of the race. It is so long, though, by that point I just don’t care. Dragonflies are sometimes predictable, but I like it when they’re not. They’re fun to watch, their wings shimmer in the moonlight, see,” she remarked. “They’re beautiful. They can just fly away when they have a problem, sometimes I wish that I could fly away.” She laughed. “I know this will sound silly, but a part of me thinks that if I collect enough of them that one day I will be able to fly.”

“That doesn’t sound silly. Improbable, maybe, but not silly,” he reassured her. He took the braids out of her hair and pinned it up with the clip that she had been cleaning earlier. “You should wear your hair down more often.”

“It would obstruct my path if I could fly,” she teased, poking him playfully on the nose.

“Faeries don’t pull their hair up and they can fly.”

“Good point,” she smiled.

He leaned forward to kiss her. She let him kiss her, as moon silver shimmered upon the lake below them. He pulled away, and took her hand in her own. “I know that we’re only eighteen, April, but I want to ask you something that’s been on my mind. Will you marry me, will you be my dragonfly girl?”

She looked at him with a tender smile. “Yes, nothing would make me happier. Not everyone could understand or tolerate me with all my quirks,” she grinned.

“You’re worth it, even if you’re a little crazy.”

“Watch it, that’s your future wife you’re talking about,” she teased, sticking her tongue out at him. When he slipped the ring upon her finger, she gasped in surprise. It had a dragonfly on it, diamonds were the dragonflies eyes. She had never seen an engagement ring like it in her life. “David, it’s beautiful.”

“Your father was certain you would like it when I asked him for your hand.”

She smiled. “Well, my dad might not understand much about me, but that comes as no surprise. He was wrong about this, too.” He frowned. “I don’t like it, I love it!” She rested her head on his shoulder, a lilting comfortable silence stretched it’s wings between the pair on hymns of moonbeams and starlight, as the pair watched the dragonflies avert the perilous danger of being eaten. Nothing, in her humble opinion could be more perfect than this moment.


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Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.