Numbers to a Butterfly

As I sit on this small speckled rock, I contemplate the view that confronts me; a once sprawling forest now being eaten away by huge condo developments, golf courses, and strange, foreign, well groomed shrubbery. I look at a once beautiful, rapidly flowing creek, now in the process of being removed to make space for a fountain, sculpted out of hard, flat white concrete.

As the woods begin to fade farther and farther into the distance and the fences continue to force back the tree line, the creatures that inhabit this once pristine wilderness are forced back in kind, or disappear completely. Looking farther across the land, the huge blacktop of the brand new branch of a gigantic four lane highway is clearly visible; the sounds of the cars and trucks that speed down it day and night carry through the thinning trees.

I watch a large group of landscape workers taking a short break from they’re lying of AstroTurf to erect a new (but in no way the first) large, glossy sign. Even their comparatively quiet sledge hammering seems to assault my senses with uncomfortable vibrations. Moving towards them I am suddenly all too aware of the noxious fumes of the machinery, vehicles and the tobacco the men smoke seeping into my body.

Finally close enough to see the sign I look up at the freshly painted words:

“More than 50,000 new homes by January! 75,000 Acres of pristine, newly landscaped plots for sale! Condos starting at $150,000! “

I couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around what any of this meant, or how it justified the destruction of an entire ecosystem, but what do numbers mean to a butterfly anyway? .