Dragonfly

The initial contact the little legs made with Maggie's finger tickled. She stifled her reaction. In her mind, as long as she didn't move or make any sounds, the dragonfly would remain still on her finger. She slowly set down the small spade she had been loosening the ground with and lowered herself into the unkempt grass. She had neglected mowing it for long enough that it formed a soft cushion underneath her. The dragonfly seemed unbothered by the slight shift in position, the wings buzzing briefly, as if testing the air, but not seeming intent to flee.

"I'm comfortable here" it seemed to say "You may move, but don't push it."

Maggie lowered her hand to rest on her knee, slowly relaxing one muscle after another, settling into a position that she could hold for indeterminate amounts of time.

It was a hot day out, hot enough to justify not working through the afternoon, where the sun still stood high in the sky. Even as the shadows began stretching through Maggie's garden, the dragonfly sat still, only turning slightly whenever the wind picked up slightly, or Maggie adjusted to a more comfortable position. Each time it did, Maggie could understand that it had no pressing intentions of leaving, if it didn't have to. While soon she had enough trust in it not to suddenly leave that she saw no necessity in keeping her eyes on it, the glances she stole at it for every now and then sketched a very clear message of it in her mind. Shimmering green and purple reflections, with large, segmented eyes and filligrane wings, sketched through with the dark arteries. Even as the sun set, and tinged the garden in red, altering the details of the dragonfly's colours, shifting them into warmer tones. She could feel the dragonfly's legs against the back of her hand. There was a stillness in their shared waiting. Each waited for the other to move. A friendly stalemate, she thought. No, not even friendly, strictly speaking. A comfortable one. Nothing more. It wasn't like Maggie and the dragonfly had grown more than familiar. Neither had uttered a word, as far as she knew, even as she finally stood, far after the sun had gone down, prompting the dragonfly to take into the air.

"I never really thought of dragonflies as peaceful." Maggie's friend said when she looked over the doodles in the margins of her notebook. It was a ballpoint pen sketch of a dragonfly, her dragonfly.

"It's not meant to be peaceful. What makes it look peaceful?"

"I guess the pose?"

"I'm not sure there are other poses dragonflies can take." Maggie pondered the question for a moment, then began another sketch. The same dragonfly, though coiled around some invisible thing. A flower-stem perhaps, indicated by the stubs of lines leading into the checkered paper. They had spent the morning sketching in the park, spending the second day of the weekend in the way that they had for a long time, not so long ago either. It had been the onset of adult life, a working schedule and homes to maintain that had slimmed down the opportunities to do what they had spent hours doing as an activity to keep their hands busy. For Maggie, it had only become a hobby after the fact.

"It's just... relaxed." her friend said.

"I suppose so. It seemed that way."

"That was your entire day yesterday then?"

"I had fun."

"I can tell."

Maggie looked past the edge of the notebook. She spotted a poodle playing in the grass several paces away. The grass had been cut not long ago, and the white fur of the poodle had yellowish-green stains. Just as she set her pen to paper, there was a flicker in the corner of her eye, as something flew past her head. She didn't have to check to know what it was that had been, and despite everything she couldn't help but smile to herself.