I find butterflies fascinating.
I’ve never heard the insights of a butterfly. But if I were so fortunate as to have a conversation with a butterfly. In a world where I could, of course, meet with a butterfly for a chat. I imagine it would arrive punctually. Casually settling onto my forefinger as if coming home after an extended voyage. Not so much flying or fluttering as floating.
I’d immediately set out to study the details of the small creature with curious eyes. Would it consider that impolite?
I’d wonder the same things I always do. Do butterflies know how beautiful they are?
They don’t get to see their wings or get to consider their aesthetic value, let alone to perceive them as beautiful. Is that what humility is about?
I’d ask about the cocoon. “What’s it like?” I’d furrow a pair of quizzical eyebrows as I ask.
“I read somewhere that butterflies split open and lose their exoskeleton when they pupate,” I’d venture. “Does that hurt?”
I’ve always wondered what that time in isolation as a pupa must be like. Extraordinary, I imagine. Divine, definitely.
“Did you emerge as a clean slate?” I’d enquire with childlike wonder.
“As in, are you conscious of your previous caterpillar experience? Do you get to keep those memories?”
Butterflies are phenomenal. They get to have four lives – their four distinct stages of metamorphosis.
I’d probably also ask if it has ever been ashamed of its cocoon, or its previous caterpillar form. Are its wings a reminder of a darker, colder time of its existence? A time of unrealized potential that it would rather forget.
I imagine it would briefly flutter its wings, almost reflexively as it pondered the question for a moment. The whole world would seem to hold its breath in anticipation.
“I am a butterfly,” it would supply finally, matter-of-factly.
“When I emerge from the chrysalis, a matured version of my previous larval form, with a set of wings and no flight experience, I am surprising no one.”
Its antennae would be motionless, in the butterfly equivalent of a deadpan expression.
“I haven’t done anything extraordinary. In fact, I haven’t done anything at all. Let alone that which warrants shame.”
“My metamorphosis is not my work. It is simply the way of things. It is desperately unremarkable by the standards of my species. It is the rule.”
“Not only that,” it would add thoughtfully.
“Shame makes no sense because this is necessary. My wings are a mechanism for my protection, designed to intimidate and deter predators with their patterns and bright colours. They’re also my means of mobility, I cannot be ashamed of them. They are what allows me to continue my existence.”
I’d listen attentively, almost greedily. Focusing on the vivid horizon ahead of us and hanging on every word meditatively.
“Kind of like grace,” I’d offer after a while, deeply pensive and saturated in the moment.
It wouldn’t be until I turn for another glance at the splendor of those delicate wings that I would realize my index finger was no longer occupied.
“Of course,” I’d say, with an affectionate smile. “It was a weightless creature, I didn’t feel it lift off my finger. How long has it been gone?” I’d begin to wonder.
Then the air would fall still around me, as if all of creation were calling me to attention.
“Wings” I’d hear. “Kind of like grace.”
– Lele M
Lele Muthali 