Butterfly's Flight and Fight

I open my eyes for the first time I can remember. I cannot see a thing. There is total and absolute darkness. Blackness completely surrounds my entire being. I cannot hear sounds clearly. I may hear some bird chirping in the far-off distance but the sound was muffled by this hard shell encompassing my whole body. I feel squashed; like I cannot breathe. The air cannot pass through this inflexible armor encasing me. My six legs are pulled tight against my abdomen. Bent at the knee, and staying in that position for weeks on end has caused them to go numb.  I try to reposition myself so that blood can circulate to the tips of my wings and my littlest toes. However, the crusty shell provides no room for movement. After a few more precious moments of experimenting I decide that my only choice is to escape from this prison. After all, this can’t be all there is to life, can it? I am not completely stuck forever, am I? As I ponder this for a bit longer, I recall some new memories I didn’t think I had. I remember eating, and a bird that tried to devour me.  I can see in my minds eye a milkweed bush, and the blaring sunlight that caused my eyes to water. ‘Where did these thoughts come from?’ I muse. This dismal, darkness filled shelter isn’t all there was to my life according to these long-forgotten but now-remembered memories, so I decide to escape. 

 

I push at the side of my prison attempting to break through the wall. All I succeed in doing is bruising my right wing however. I press on the other side and when that doesn’t work, I endeavor to swing my encasement around. Finally, after many long minutes I make a tiny crack in my cocoon. I struggle to squeeze my whole body through this minuscule hole. I twist and turn, attempting to escape. Blood is seeping into my wings as I finally get them free. When I eventually make it out, I tiredly climb up the stalk I had been hanging from. I look back and see a forest green cocoon suspended from a small leaf. ‘Had I really spent so much time dangling there?’ I think to myself. The sun comes out from its hiding place behind a cloud. The heat radiating from it feels absolutely heavenly. I just sit there on the stalk soaking up the warmth and fall into a restful sleep. Hours later when I awake, it is dark. I am frightened; I think for a brief second that I am stuck in that isolated shelter once again. Then I see the bright stars shine from up above and I know that I am safe.  Well, safe from that prison, not from the bats.

 

The next morning I stand up and stretch out my orange and black wings. Feeling hungry, I decide to fly out in some search of food. I reach my huge wings as far out as they will go and take in a deep breath of air as I jump up off the plant I’d been resting on. I drop down a good two feet as I try to teach myself how to work these awkward large extensions. When I finally get the hang of the slight flapping motions necessary to the use of my wings, I feel pure euphoria rush through my small body. I feel so free! The gentle billows of cool October air fill my senses with sights and smells. I taste and hear the sounds of the world around me. I do a little loop-de-loop just to see if I can. I love the enjoyment and the freedom associated with flight. I feel drunk on the giddiness I experience. After two and a half weeks in that cramped chrysalis of a house, I take great delight in soaring high above the earth. I soon forget about the hunger in my stomach. 

 

I sense a bluebird chasing after me and I glide around, confusing it until it gives up on me. Ha! I had not felt frightened at all, for I know that I am not this tiny fat worm. No, I am a beautiful Monarch butterfly who can fly and I‘m not about to let a baby bluebird get in my way of a good time. I am no longer frightened of what had scared my caterpillar-self nearly to death. How odd is that? I try to smile wide, however that is tricky when your face muscles don’t move that way. Still, I know in my head that I had the widest, happiest, cheesiest grin plastered to my face and I was fine with it. I do a double helix and discover that they are so much fun to do. I want to do them over and over –one, that was fun, two, three, wow I am getting dizzy now, four, woah! is the sun really spinning? five, I think that’s enough for me…- I feel slightly nausea, but it was so worth it!

 

I breathe in through my skin and I feel the oxygen hit every single blood vessel. As I fly I can taste the breeze of the air on my feet. I taste the sweet perfume of fragrant lilies. This brings my mind out of its utter state of ecstasy and back to reality. My stomach cries out for some nectar. I find this rather odd because in my previous life all I ate was milkweed leaves. But now I crave the sweet, liquid nectar of flower blossoms. I swoop down and follow my sense of smell as I search hungrily for the lilies I smell. I find them in a small pond by a fisherman. I glide around in soft turns as I gently land on a lily with pink petals. As I stick my proboscis out in to the nectar sack within the flower the man called out “Hey little pretty, does that taste yummy?” I had to agree it did now I finally understood why my little milkweed bush was a haven for the bees that I was so terrified were going to sting me. The nectar tasted delicious! It was like honey, - milky, sweet and yet not overpoweringly so. Once my appetite is full, I fly away in search of a place to rest my sleepy head, for twilight is fast approaching.

 

The next morning, I open my eyes to find the sun peeping its rays only a few degrees above the eastern mountains. He is scowling his condescending glare on all of creation. I open my eyes to let only a small slit of light enter, I try to awake, however my body does not want to cooperate. I sit, letting the sun’s heat radiate its energy into my body, letting the heat emanate into my most inmost being. After a few moments, the sun stirs all my senses and I am finally conscious. I decide to have a quick flight; soon I open my wings and soar off the tree branch I had been resting on. Departing on my journey I realize that I’m not in search of some food, neither for a shelter to spend the falling evening, no, I have this desire to fly south. Much like the way a bird flies south for the winter, I have in me the immediate and innate wanting to go that way; I have no rational reason to fly south. I don’t even know what is there! But acting on pure instinct, on blind faith, I choose to just do it. Hey, what do I have to lose?

 

I unfurl my orange and black wings, and fly with the sun in the east. My left side growing slightly cold as no heat hit it. Then later in the day, my right side gains the chill of the shade. Exhaustion and cold become my constant companions.  I fly and fly, day upon day, not liking flying as much. After a few hours my wings, without fail, grow tired, heavy, and I become famished. I didn’t enjoy flight quite as much as I had before. I am slightly saddened because of it. My greatest joy from my butterfly-hood doesn’t bring me the satisfaction as it did before. While it used to bring jubilance, now it had become a need, not a desire, and I had to go south for I reason I knew not. 

 

Then, one chilly morning weeks later, I awake at dawn. In the desert, I assume. There is many a reddish rock and sparse greenery. I had spent the night making myself as small as I possibly could. For, every time I try to spread out, to gain some comfort in easing my tensed muscles, a wing or a foot would hit a tall pointy white thing almost as large as I was. I learned a few days previously that while these green, prickly plants were uncomfortable, they provided great protection from other animals that might wish to harm me. Apparently, the animals dislike this ugly, barbed, vegetation as much as do. However, the few flowers that I find growing near and on these spiny plants do have delicious nectar that never ceases to amaze me in its wonderful taste and in its ability to nourish my thirsty soul.

 

As I set out flying south, I come upon a long dark gray – almost black - path. I had seen many of these along my journey. There are always small colorful dots, honking and screeching, going along the dull road. Today I choose to investigate. In the past, I had always been afraid that one of the whizzing dots might be dangerous.  That it might somehow eat me up. But I face my fears; I steel myself and fly down. I see colors of red and yellow, dark greens and many silvers flying quickly by on their four round legs. I barley see them, they are so swift. This is scary, but I am no chicken so I glide closer. Then I suppose a large, hawk-like bird catches sight of me. That is the only way I can explain why it chases me. I can’t explain the reason I fly out to the meet the blurs but I guess the fear of the known, far outweighed the fear of the unknown. (For a hawk was a defiantly known to me.  I had met many of these on my journeying, and I had seen them violently kill many poor animals, carrying the small furry mice or other pitiful creatures about.) When I notice that the bird isn’t following, I smiled. Silly bird! These large blurs aren’t scary at all. They just zip right by, but they won’t even hurt a fly! I outsmart the bird, but then I realize that the bird outsmarted me. I can hide from the bird, but I am too small to see by the huge beasts of color. My grin slides and the color drains from my face as the green, box-shaped beast swallows me up as I try in vain to fly faster and farther to escape its claws.