Witches among blue butterflies.
She was a beautiful, fresh-faced girl, like any other of those waiting for the professor to arrive while they chatted and laughed in groups. Only those who came very close could tell her apart by the depth and seriousness of her gaze. She was alone, standing by the door to pass through the first students into the amphitheatre.
The seminar professor arrived with English punctuality. He placed his briefcase on the desk and from there gestured to the students, inviting them to enter.
Jolie liked the global perspective, so she climbed up the steps and placed her tablet on the table on the top step in the centre of the semi-circular classroom. From there she could see the teacher from the front and had a full view of the classroom.
"I am Marius Denis, we are 101 people in this seminar. Any comments on this before we start the class?" said the professor when silence fell.
A faint murmur filled the classroom. "We are a hundred" "round number" "what a coincidence" "nice number" "a magic number" "a snake that bites its tail" "capicua" "a pallidrome" "good omen" "no one can leave the course, it would break the spell!"
The teacher listened to the spontaneous and fragmented comments.
"Are we many or are we few?" Asked the teacher with a jovial smile that had an immediate sympathetic effect on his young students.
The answer came from the centre of the last tier.
"That's the perfect number for this seminar!"
The professor heard more than just the words. He heard the confident vocal modulation, the tone of her voice, dark and low, that seemed to come from a person older than the one he was observing.
A discreet but perceptible smile formed on his face as if the student's voice was giving more information to him than to the rest of the group.
"Will you tell us your name, please?"
"I'm Jolie, Jolíe Bonnet."
"Explain to us why you say that the number one hundred and one is the perfect number for this course, Jolie."
"Well, basically because, according to some beliefs, the number one contains the energy necessary for successful beginnings, mediated by the number zero which represents God. In this course we are promised to begin to study the origin and history of the beliefs."
"From that point of view, belief may be true, Jolie. What do the others say?"
The classroom was filled with opinions, with questions... The conversation became deeper and deeper, more and more interesting and complicated.
With a wave of her hand, Jolie switched on her tablet. The image of the blue planet unfolded on the screen and reflected in her eyes. In Jolie's pupils the terrestrial sphere moved as if it were a magic ball. At the touch of her finger, the different beliefs unfolded, all intertwining and expanding in the universe.
"According to what you say, all belief systems and all the procedures associated with them are a religion," said one student at the time. "Therefore witchcraft is a religion and therefore there are witches.
Jolie raised her chin, interested. Her eyes still reflected the terrestrial sphere. Everyone was looking at the teacher at that moment, but Professor Denis was looking at her.
At that moment, a blue butterfly flew across the room, zigzagged across the bleachers and landed on the ceiling, just above Jolie's head.
There was total silence in the classroom. It was a light silence, like the silence of the past, or the silence that is just before the future opens.
As Denis watched Jolie, fascinated, a myriad of blue butterflies filled the amphitheatre. She smiled. From her tablet, from the terrestrial sphere, the familiar figures, dressed in black with pointed hats, began to fly, on their brooms. They became entangled with the butterflies.
Jolie made a graceful, slow gesture. In unison, Marius rose from the podium, levitated to her. As he moved over the heads of his students, he understood that time had stopped for them and perhaps for the rest of the world.
When he was next to Jolie, he heard, inexplicably, in a distant way, the intemperate cackles of the witches that ordinary people consider so distasteful.
"We're having a big ritual today," said Jolie, "We're having a party. I've come to invite you.
Marius was an advanced researcher. What was happening to him was within the realm of possibility, but he never thought he would feel what he was feeling for a real witch.
"Will you take me to an island where there will be a big cake to make wishes?" Marius said, in a sentence that seemed very silly to himself.
We'll make a break in time, tomorrow we'll pick up the class where we interrupted it. Jolie said in reply.
It is rare for adults to gaze attentively at the firmament. That's why no one noticed the myriad of blue and black butterflies that crossed the Parisian sky looking for the sea and, in it, a mysterious island.
Only the children were witnesses to that day when, two decades ago, the great celebration that united the witches' caste with that of the sensitive men of the earth began.
Years later this memory would come back to them, abruptly, in a classroom.
@gracielaacevedo
I really enjoyed this. You write beautifully and deeply. Following for more :-)
I enjoyed writing it too, @samsmith1971! That's the wonder of writing and reading, in the end they are nothing more than meeting points. I thank you for reading. Thanks for following me.
This is so creative and imaginative, @gracielaacevedo. What a different take on a witch! And a fun entry for this week's prompt. I could really picture the whole scene. Very nice imagery. Thanks for sharing your story!
It's a pleasure to read your generous comment, @jayna. I believe that the world is full of magic and that it nourishes reality in a fantastic way. Thanks to you, for your beautiful reading.
Oh my, your story is beautifully written. You used this week's prompt from a creative and intriguing angle. I like the connection between Jolie and Marius. It was an instant spark the moment she uttered that statement in class.
Thanks for the nice comment, @kemmyb. There really is a lot of magic in the emergence of love. The world is full of those sparks of love detonated by a tone of voice, or a way of looking.... Besides, the girl being a beautiful witch, what else can we expect?
Lovely, you have done a wonderful creative post. When you started with the debate on 100 and 1. I thought you were taking us to binary numbers consisting of 110100 typed stories but this is really so creative.
That clever teacher was able to take advantage of the class list to get to the existence of religious beliefs in his classroom. This is a beautiful subject that touches the whole of humanity. Witchcraft, the subject that interests us, is a pioneer among beliefs. Et voilà! Fingers on the keyboard did the rest...
Thank you for the kindness of your reading.Muchas gracias por tu entusiasta comentario, @sunnyag.
My favorite of the witch,cake, island prompt!
Its they way you described the route Jolie took to the amphitheater for me. I could see the path in my mind's eye.
That meaning she read to the course code though.
Good job!
That description of the road in the Latin Quarter, where the best universities in France are located, is a tribute to a theorist I adore: the super-specialist in Comparative Religions, Mircea Eliade.
Reading him, I learned to see the world full of magic.
Your comment allows me to make the homage public, thank you.Thanks for your sensitive reading, @faithann!
Beautiful imagery in your story @gracielaacevedo. I particularly enjoyed your description of silence:
Somehow this is apt for the moment. I enjoyed the careful way the story is crafted. It was a pleasure to read.
Thank you so much for your sensitive reading and comment, @litguru.
At that point in the writing I felt I could describe that liminal space and time where some things stop and the entrance to another dimension begins, but that would have been counterproductive there. I opted to make the silence feel like an expression of that narrow space between different dimensions.
The discussion of the numbers, the different witch, modern......Simply lovely.Congratulations @gracielaacevedo I liked the images. They convey the content that the reader will read.
Plus you let the personalities of Jolie and Marius shine through. And the unusualness of the butterflies and when they say: "today's ritual". A mix of past and future.
I loved it
Thank you for reading, @katleya. Marius and Jolie are both brilliant people in their own right. Jolie obviously had him in her sights, haha. I think they will both grow and shine brighter with this encounter.
Hello @gracielaacevedo, I was in Paris again. And in an amphitheater, attending class. You set the atmosphere perfectly. The scene is real and therefore what follows is convincing. I'm with @sunnyag in thinking this might have something to do with code. But no. You found a creative way to write to the prompts.
A really original interpretation.
Thank you for your kind read and nice comment!
I'm glad you walked with Yolie all the way to the university.
It's lucky that she went like ordinary people. She often uses her flying broom.Hello @agmoore!
You reminded me of my college days.
I love the delicate details of your narrative. Beautifully written.