The Art of Transformation: a short story by Kody Boye
In which a young person undergoes a procedure to change their life
There once was a time in my life when I believed myself incapable of change—and that, through the realities of the world and its many transgressions against me, I would never be able to take shape and fly.
The only problem with flying, they say, is that you first have to grow wings to do so.
For so long I have waited to undergo my transformation.
Now, the day is here.
My hand trembles as I consider the IV running into my flesh. My mind races at the concept of what is about to occur. Surgical intervention was never really an option I had dreamed about, at least in the past. But with the gift I received from my grandmother, I’d managed just enough money to do it.
A flicker of movement appears at my side.
“Hello,” a woman who I believe is a nurse says. “My name is Destiny. I’ll be the anesthesiologist monitoring you as you undergo your procedure.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I say.
The woman smiles, all radiance and joy. She is, in many ways, an angel to me—a person who could, at any moment, sprout wings and take flight. If I’ve learned anything in life, however, it’s that many angels don’t have wings, and that many cannot fly. They are, in many ways, people just like us here on Earth.
People, I think, who can change your life forever.
The woman named Destiny lowers her eyes to look at my chart, and says, “The operating room is almost ready. Doctor Lawson is preparing as we speak.”
“I—” I start to say. “I don’t—”
A flutter of emotion consumes me. A feeling of desperation assaults me. For a single, quiet moment, I feel I will break. Then, slowly, I inhale, and realize that things will soon change.
Destiny lifts her head to consider the hallway outside as she hears movement. A moment later, a younger, male nurse steps in, and he says, “Doctor Lawson will be ready shortly.”
“Thank you,” Destiny says. She lifts her eyes to consider the IV bag that is primed to drip into my arm, then nods and says, “Are you ready?”
“I think so,” I say.
“You’ll feel a bit of cold,” she says, “but afterward, it won’t take long for you to fall asleep.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me about your happiest memory,” she says.
“My happiest memory,” I say, as a chill radiates from my wrist and up my arm. “It… was with my grandmother—”
“Your grandmother?” Destiny asks.
“—and she… she told me that I could be whoever I wanted. That I could be… that I could… that I could one day…”
“… sprout wings and fly,” a voice says.
I open my eyes to find that I am lying on a couch. Nearby, a rocking chair squeaks as it moves back and forth, and the smell of cinnamon tea permeates the room, inspiring my senses, and inciting me to lift my head to locate the speaker within.
“How are you feeling?” my grandmother asks.
I stare at the old woman—the old woman whose presence in my life had been so constant, only to be ripped away in what seemed like an instant—and ask, “How?”
“How what, dear?”
“Are you here?”
“I’ve come to see you through,” she then says.
“Through?” I ask. “Do you… do you mean I—”
“No, dear. You didn’t die, if that’s what you’re asking.” The old woman lifts her eyes from her knitting to consider me. “You’re still there, on that table, becoming who you are really meant to be.”
“So I’m okay?” I ask.
To which my grandmother replies with a nod, and says, “Yes, dear. You will be just fine.”
A moment of silence ensues. During this time, I listen to the rocking chair, smell the cinnamon tea, look upon the face of the woman who succumbed to a sudden aneurysm only six months prior. Then I think, She’s here. She’s really here.
And I smile, for what feels like the first time in ages.
“Why are you smiling, Butterfly?” she asks.
“Because I’m here,” I say, “with you.”
“But only for a moment,” my grandmother says. “Soon, you will wake up; and soon, you will have a whole new life ahead of you.”
“Can I tell you something, Grandma?”
“You can,” she says.
“I’m scared.”
“Everyone gets scared when they begin a new chapter,” my grandmother replies. “It isn’t just you—it’s everyone.”
“But… do you think it’ll be worth it, in the end?”
“Do you?”
I think of myself as a child, whose life was so conflicted, whose sense of self was always fractured, disjointed, broken. Then, I think of the butterfly I watched emerge from its cocoon over several days when I was just ten—and how, as I’d watched, I’d witnessed the chrysalis tremble as the creature within sought change.
Is that how life is? I then think.
To feel so damaged. To feel so unwelcome. To want to take shelter and make shape and then be reborn anew, like a pupa does when it becomes the butterfly, beautiful wings, eyes and all?
I center my gaze on my grandmother, and say, “Thank you. For everything that you’ve done. For everything you’ve left behind.”
“You needn’t thank me,” she says, before lowering her gaze to her hands. “Our time is up, now. Go free, my butterfly.”
I feel a tug of sensation—
—and then, I am awakening to a voice asking, “How are you feeling?”
I feel drowsy. Slightly delirious. Sore in places I could have never imagined. But as the realization of my transformation becomes clear, I offer the smallest of smiles, and say, “I feel reborn. Like… like a butterfly who just gained its wings.”
The voice doesn’t respond. The voice simply says, “I’ll take you to your room now.”
The wheels on the stretcher begin to move not long after, ushering me not just to my room, but my future as well.
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