The magical butterfly
As soon as I caught a glimpse, I couldn’t look away. There it was, fluttering in the sky. Beautiful shimmers of pink and purple. Drifting left, then right, then up, then down. There was no plan. There was just movement. I sat there, rocking up and down, entranced by the motion.
Then, as if to snap me out of my stupor, the butterfly dropped quickly as it floated above my head, landing on my sweatshirt. I’m not exactly experienced with animals. It might have landed lightly, but the shock sent thunderous waves rippling through my body. I nearly fell off the chair…I caught myself just as the colors and shape started to come into focus…there it was…
a pink sticker with a purple heart.
I laughed at the insanity, bouncing in my chair at the hilarity. A sticker, drifting in the wind, mistaken for a butterfly. Then, as if to mock me further, I saw the purple heart shimmer, causing me to question one last time if there might be a butterfly within, its caterpillar form somehow both reversible and also a sticker.
I lightly picked the sticker off my shirt and pushed it to stick on my index finger. The rest of the afternoon was spent looking at the sticker. One minute, laughing as I replayed my confusion and fear. The next minute, staring as I looked again for signs of life in the sticker.
I couldn’t let go of the sticker. I couldn’t move on. I felt crazy, but I knew the only way to get closure was to speak to someone about it. There was one person I could speak to. One person who wouldn’t judge. My best friend. As I sat down at his dinner table, I told him just in the way I experienced it, hoping he would feel the reality of the butterfly in his own mind before I shattered his understanding.
Alas, the story did not have that mesmerizing effect.
“Oh, that’s hilarious. It just…looked like a butterfly?!?
I need to see this sticker to see how much it looks like a butterfly.”
I hesitated. Before I made my way to his house, I had transferred the sticker into a box with holes at the top, in case the butterfly demanded isolation to return to its flying form. Now, I felt only sadness at the impending prospect of mockery.
My friend saw the heart sticker, his reaction taking me by surprise.
“Ohhhh…this is a beautiful sticker. Can I take it out?”
Me: “No. No. I want to leave it in there. Please don’t touch it.”
“OK OK fine!”
Before the jokes could begin, I went to the restroom, hoping I could return to find myself in a different conversation.
I returned to find the box open on the table. Instinctively, I nearly sprinted up to the table, catching sight of the sticker in the corner of the box. I grabbed the cover to the box and closed it before scooping it up. Though I tried to play it cool picking up the box, it was too late to make up for the crazy-looking antics of the prior moments.
“Jeez! What’s up with you?”
I wondered if this was how madness began. An obsession with a sticker, keeping it in a box and claiming it was a butterfly.
I peered into the box and didn’t see the sticker. I lifted the other corner. Still didn’t see it anywhere. I yanked open the box, then shouted in anger,
“Where’s my sticker?!?!”
“What do you mean? It’s inside your box! I never touched it!”
“It’s not there! It’s not in my box!”
“You must have dropped it while you were walking. I have no idea!!!”
I paused and looked at my best friend.
My eyes did a poor job concealing my rising suspicion.
“What are you looking at me like that for?
You saw the box when you came up here! You saw the sticker in the box!
DIDN’T YOU?!!?”
My breathing got heavy. I had seen the sticker. Or had I? Again, I found myself full of doubt and my face started to soften. He sensed my struggle and tried to de-escalate.
“Look, it must have fallen down somewhere around here. Let’s look for it.”
He got on his hands and knees and started scouring the ground for the sticker. On the bare hardwood floor, there weren’t many places to hide. A few minutes later, long after it was clear the search was futile, he gave up. He walked up to me and took the box from my hand. He opened it and looked in with incredulity.
“I honestly have no idea what happened. Who knows - maybe it was a butterfly after all???”
I smiled as I walked out of the room, using my thumb to gently rub the sticker resting on my index finger.