Need anything?

Stopping by Wawa on a summer evening.

It is an unlikely place. I’m in the car, waiting for my driving companion to return from a quick pit stop. We’ve pulled into one of those highway-side service plazas, except the definition of service has changed from when I was younger.

Gone are the days when an attendant filled your tank, washed your windshield, offered directions—maybe even diagnosed a rattle or patched a tire. When the bathroom was ‘round back, and the key dangled from a block of wood the size of your shin. Outside, dispensers gobbled quarters in exchange for cans of soda pop. Inside, you crossed paths with a customer or two, including the guy who stopped in just to chew the fat with anyone who’d listen, whether they wanted to or not. You could grab a pack of Wrigley’s, a carton of Winstons, or a can of WD-40, but never fresh food, diapers, or lawn chairs. Everything was glazed in grease and smoke, making the cracked green vinyl chairs by the plate-glass window look even less inviting in the afternoon sun.

This place is not like that. This place is a bright, busy, red and yellow current of capitalism. A teenager in plaid pajama pants lumbers past, hugging a cup so big it could hold a chihuahua. A man in a high-vis vest stands near the ice cooler, one hand scrolling his phone, the other lifting a vape to his lips. A woman in pink leggings checks her reflection in the car window, smooths her topknot, and disappears inside without breaking stride.

Here, were I so inclined, I could pick up chopped cantaloupe, cheddar cubes, gossip rags, gauzy tees, camo hats, wet wipes, wart remover, pickled jalapeños, even passionfruit lube, tucked neatly between the hand sanitizer and the hemp bracelets.

The parking area is a trial-sized Autobahn. There are people everywhere, not one lingering long enough to chew much of anything. From the car, I watch this human ant farm with the detached gaze of someone who’s seen this scene a thousand times.

Then I notice the butterfly, blowing like a dropped receipt along the sidewalk. Assuming it to be a roadway casualty that has somehow drifted here, I hop out to retrieve it. At least I can move it to a more respectable final resting place, a patch of grass maybe, or below a bush. Are there even any bushes here?

It’s not until I stoop to pick it up that I realize it’s still alive. On its back, wings straining against the concrete, six little legs move frantically in the air. It latches onto my finger instantly, falls off just as quickly, and continues struggling to right itself.

This is the moment when everything changes. I can’t trace the origin of what happens next. There is no conscious lesson, no specific study, no definitive opportunity for me to have lodged this information in my brain. But I know what needs to happen. I know it without a moment’s hesitation, know without knowing.

Things are wrong-side out. The butterfly’s hindwings are askew, positioned above its forewings instead of beneath them. I hold the tiny being as gently as I can, coaxing one delicate wing back into place, pausing, then moving to the other. By now, my husband stands next to me on the sidewalk, but as far as I know, we are otherwise alone in this bubble of wildness suspended inside the machine of modern enterprise.

No one else witnesses the butterfly take flight, work its way up little by little, rise above the building, clear the fuel island canopy. No one else holds their breath until it escapes the current of air that threatens to suck it back into the commercial vortex. No one else watches until it’s just a speck, barely visible against the afternoon sky.

~Elizabeth

Photo by Noemi Salinaro on Pexels

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A quick note: this essay, which I reworked somewhat for Chicken Scratch, was originally written back in 2019—a small time capsule of a moment that’s stayed with me. I’m glad to finally share it with you now.

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*Cover image by Meadow Marie on Unsplash