Something I Still Regret

When I was a young girl and before I had siblings we lived on an island in Japan and I spent most of my days playing on the hillside catching bugs with my butterfly net or bug bottle.  I would also ride my bike, go rollerblading, pick flowers, wear the hibiscus flowers behind my ear, and touch the little leafy plants that would then close and not open again until the next morning.  

One day I had caught a very pretty monarch butterfly in my net and was struggling to transfer it into my but bottle.  It fluttered out of the net and I scrambled to capture it in my bottle but it then fluttered just a couple feet away.  This happened a couple times and finally in frustration I stood up and stomped my foot.  At the precise moment my foot was coming back down the dumb butterfly fluttered under my foot!  I was injured to the core at having harmed one of the prettiest things I'd ever seen.  I crouched down to inspect the damage done.  Unfortunately the poor little thing was in dire circumstances and wasn't likely to pull through.  I felt unimaginable guilt.  After mourning a few minutes I got up to move on to other adventures.  I quickly noticed that up the hill from me the neighbor kids were watching.  Did they know?  Was my dirty, guilty secret exposed?!  In dread I pretended that nothing had happened, gathered my bug catching supplies and headed the opposite direction.  I worked my way around and came up the hill from the side.  From there I saw the children had gone down to where the corpse of my slain butterfly lay.  They looked up the hill at me throwing accusatory glares and unfriendly vibes.  I thought for sure I'd be an outcast the rest of my days.  For a few days I felt somewhat despised, even ostracized!  Eventually the kids forgot my crime and our friendships were reestablished but even to this day I feel slightly like a murderer.  

Granted it can seem a little amusing now, but mainly I just recall the sinking, sickening dread that I had destroyed my little friend who was completely innocent!  Funny that killing ants, ugly beetles and spiders on a regular basis never bothered me.