'Flutter By the Butterfly' by Amanda Davies

 

She doesn’t like heights, this painted lady. She doesn’t want to be pretty, nor spend her days in the sun flitting about, being chased by the male species. Her body has changed, matured, she isn’t sure she’s ready to become mother, she’s hardly out of adolescence.

She’d loved being a teenager, especially during the cold, dark winter just passed. Those were the days. Time spent cocooned in her warm silken bed, stuffed full of the previous summer and autumn harvest feasts.

She moves to a different part of the garden near her old home, she’s following the sun as it tracks to its western bed. She likes the heat on her face. She dips her long tongue into the syrupy nectar she’s drinking, her eyes closing in bliss.

Suddenly she’s shaking, the chrysalis she climbed out of yesterday is closing back in on her. Squashing her, folding in on her wings. Flashbacks - that tight claustrophobic feeling, then, just as quick, wings furling into her body, legs coming out from her belly. Lots of legs. Hairy legs. The males won’t like her now.

Again the chrysalis breaks and as she climbs out onto the leaf of a common nettle she sees she’s a mini tube shape, black and green and orange- gone are those beautiful vibrant wings. She’s no longer triangular. And now she’s shrinking ever further. She goes from long and slender to short and, well, grubby. Now she can hardly think. Is she being born or is she dying? She’s turning mint green. She’s egg shaped. She’s gone.