A strange occurrence

It’s a Thursday afternoon, about 5.30.

I’m on my way to Alison’s house for a very important and potentially very traumatic meeting.

There are a number of ways of getting to her house, naturally I choose the quickest. About 20 mins into my drive I hear the ping of my phone through the cars Bluetooth. I was using it to navigate my way to Alison’s. (I have a bad sense of direction).

As someone who has a healthy respect for the transport operations road use management act I pulled over to read the message. It said “running late, no need to hurry.” It was from Alison. By this stage the the sun was setting behind a number of large mountains to the west, as the sun tends to do.

I was on a dirt road, I could see about two hundreds metres in front of me, it was rough but straight.

As I looked up from my phone I noticed a single orange butterfly drift down and land right on my windscreen wiper. In my mind’s eye I could see an intricately drawn tattoo with two dates and four stars. The tattoo was on the skin of the woman I was on my way to meet.

I had to get going but even when I released the brake and rolled forward the butterfly hung on. It stayed there as I went faster and faster. Finally it flew off up and behind my car. I immediately heard my car navigation indicate I needed to turn, I looked at the screen. It said I would reach my destination in 27 kilometres. Kirra Mcloughlin was 27 when she died.

Tom Daunt