Thanks for taking my call. This was back when I was eight years old, fall of 1979. We'd just moved to this farmhouse outside of Harrisburg. Real rural. My dad had gotten a job at a manufacturing plant about twenty miles away, and we needed somewhere cheaper to live. The house was old, but it had this big backyard that backed right up to a cornfield. I remember my mom hated that cornfield, said it made her nervous, all those stalks just standing there. But I loved it. I'd spend hours just sitting at the edge of the yard, watching the wind move through it. It was late October, maybe early November. Cold enough that there was frost on the grass most mornings. I was sitting out there one afternoon after school. My older brother had driven me home in his Datsun pickup, we'd fought about something stupid on the way. I took my tea outside to cool off. Milk and two sugar cubes, that's how I took it.
And that's when I saw it. At first I thought it was just a regular butterfly. A big one, maybe two inches across, with these pale yellow wings. But then it landed on the armrest of my chair, right next to where I'd set my teacup down. And I saw its face. It had a human face. Not like a face drawn on a butterfly. I mean it had a face. A tiny face, maybe the size of my thumbnail. A woman's face, I think. Delicate features. And it was looking at the sugar cube I'd left on the saucer. I should have been scared. But I wasn't. It seemed curious more than anything. It turned its head, and I could see it turn, I could see the neck move, and looked right at me. And then it started to sing. Not humming, not buzzing. Singing. A real song, though I couldn't make out words. Just this high, clear melody. Like someone singing from very far away. The sound of it made my teeth ache.
While it was singing, it reached forward with these tiny arms, I hadn't noticed them before, and picked up the sugar cube. Held it like you'd hold an apple. And it ate it. Bit right into it. I watched it eat the whole thing, tiny bite after tiny bite, still singing between bites. When it finished, it looked at me again. And then it flew away, back toward the cornfield. I sat there for probably an hour afterward, just trying to figure out what I'd seen. I didn't tell anyone. I knew how it would sound. But the next day, I made sure to bring another sugar cube out with me. Left it on the arm of the chair. And it came back. Same time, right around three-thirty or four in the afternoon. Landed on the same spot. Saw the sugar cube. Looked at me, and that's when it started singing again. Same song, or at least I think it was. And it ate the sugar cube, and it left.
[ Story continues in the full game... ]