In a world so small I’m not sure that it really exists, a butterfly was floating along and a bird swept down and ate it. The body went in first, then the wings and the legs. The bird flew away, not seeing Jewel fluttering in the sky, barely a wing span away.

Jewel fluttered in a confused evasive manner. Then she tired, and landed, and remained still. Occasionally she flexed her wings slowly.

“It could just as easily have been me.” she said to no one. “There was no difference between her and me.”

“I’m thirsty.” she said aloud to herself. She coiled and uncoiled her nose. She looked up to the sky. Jewel was afraid to fly again. Jewel never felt fear before; life had been utopia a moment ago. She drank, she flew, and she enjoyed sitting with her friends in the sun, before. It was all about beauty before…

“The world isn’t safe. It just isn’t.” This statement was a huge revelation for Jewel.

She flew over to a columbine bush and got a drink of nectar.

“ What can I do? I wish I weren’t so vulnerable….I wish I could fight back… I wish I were a bird instead of butterfly….I wish I could defend myself…I wish I could do something about this.” she said to herself.

While she was thinking about fighting a spider dropped from his web.

“Hahaha…Fight back! Hahaha…What are you mumbling about butterfly? Butterflies fight in my web as they’re dying, and then I bite them and put them to sleep and I suck their blood….I make a second cocoon for them, they come out of one cocoon but I like them better in my cocoon that I make for them…hahaha…I love butterfly blood.” said the spider.

“Bzzz…Bzzzz…Bzzzz… Don’t listen to him. I always fight back and I always win. Bzzzz…” said a passing bee.

“But I don’t have a stinger. I can’t fight back.” said Jewel

“Bzzz…Don’t listen to him, if I can sting, you can sting. Bzzzz…I should fly right through his web…Bzzz…just to prove a point…Bzzzz.” said the bee.

“Well, maybe you could dye your wings a different color so that you wouldn’t attract so much attention.” a dusky voice said.

“WHAT!” Jewel looked around for the voice. “NO! Like a moth? …and hide in a tree? NO! I have beautiful wings and I couldn’t do anything to damage them. I couldn’t.” Jewel said. Then things fell uncomfortably silent. Jewel looked around and on the tree behind her she saw a moth.

“Spit…Spit…Spit…Well, you could stay close to the ground and not fly like I do…spit spit.” said the aphid.

“Or you could wear armor like I do.” said an ant.

“Spit…spit…spit…I don’t wear armor…spit…spit…but I have the ants to protect me….spit…spit…you could find a protector like I have….spit…spit…Maybe the bees would protect you.” said the aphid.

“Bzzz..zzz..Why would I do that? I only hang out with my own kind most of the time. I don’t even know why I keep flying by here, talking to you guys.….Bzzzt…zzzt.” said the bee.

“…spit…spit…yea, working for the ants ain’t all that it’s cracked up to be….they tell me to go here and they carry me there…and …I get milked. I hate being milked. Being milked is horrible. Ya know…spit…spit…spit…If I didn’t get milked all the time…spit…spit….I could like, gain weight…spit…spit…Do you see how skinny I am? …spit spit…” Jewel looked at him in disbelief. He was really a rather large aphid. “Ya SEE how skinny I am? I would be SO FAT if I weren’t milked all the time by ants…spit….spit…but they take good care of me and everything…they protect me.”said the aphid.

“Egh…get back to work ya lazy Aphid.” said an ant.

“Spit…spit…I can…spit…work and spit..spit…talk at the same time…spit…most aphids…spit…can’t do that.”

Then along came a grasshopper and said “Your problem, Miss. Butterfly, is focus. You have no focus. You flutter all over the place. Me, when I fly, I go from point-A to point-B. I just get there. That way the birds have less opportunity to attack. You just need to quit fluttering around and focus, Miss Butterfly. Quit being so fluttery, it’s just wrong, it’s just wrong, and it’s gonna get ya killed.”

“..spit…spit…ya know…spit…spit… today something very special is happening. The ants have two queens. The old queen and the young queen, they’ve been getting into it…spit…they don’t like each other very much….spit…the new queen and a bunch of drones have grown wings…spit…spit…and she’s gonna fly off today….I’ve been thinking…spit…spit…maybe…spit….spit…maybe…you could ask the new queen about your problems with birds, she’s smart….spit…she might have a good answer for ya…spit…spit..I don’t know….spit…I’m not really smart about such things…but….spit spit…but ya see em…spit…they’re coming out of the hill right now….spit spit…I know the old queen…spit…she wouldn’t talk to ya…spit…she didn’t talk to nobody…spit…but the young queen?...spit spit…they get an education in that there hill for the royal types….spit spit…I’m just a worker…spit…I don’t get educated but…spit…queens…spit…they do…spit…Hey. She’s coming out now. Spit.” said the aphid.

So Jewel fluttered down to the ant hill with the hope of being able to talk to the young queen, but she was busy. Jewel fluttered around the ants, but they ignored her. The swarm of ants was a busy flurry of small white wings.

Jewel fluttered off and settled down with some other butterflies.

They said things like: “It’s sunny again.”

“Just like yesterday and the day before.”

“I thought it was supposed to be rainy today.”

“It’ll be sunny tomorrow, ya suppose?”

“I hear Miss Vivian’s niece has the most brilliant colored wings and has laid eggs in the rhododendrons.”

“She’s a very, very, beautiful girl.”

“Miss Margo’s caterpillars are still in their cocoon, they’re not gonna get through a full cycle this year.”

“The flowers over on the east side of the barn are some of the sweetest flowers.”

“We have to fight the humming birds for them though.”

“If it stays hot like this they’ll dry up and wither away.”

The inane butterfly chatter went on and on. Jewel used to enjoy chatter sessions with the other butterflies. Now it just seemed like unsubstantial and meaningless words for words sake. She lost interest after a few moments. Death fluttered before her eyes again.

She fluttered back to the anthill just as the entourage was leaving and she followed them until they stopped. Then she approached the ant queen.

“Umm…Your Highness…Ma’am…I have a question.” said Jewel.

“Why would I talk to YOU? You don’t look royal, and I am royal, so flutter away, ok.” said the young ant queen.

“But…agh…” said Jewel.

“Did you hear me?” said the queen. She picked up a clod of dirt and grabbed Jewel’s curly nose and jammed the clod of dirt down the end of it. Jewel sneezed violently, splattering dirt all over the queen ant. “Gasp.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.” said Jewel.

I think Jewel got called a “Neon-bug-eyed-coil-nosed-bat-wanna-be.” …etc. The ant queen writhed with anger and lost her words in a fit unintelligible jaw snapping. Jewel had to fly away to get out of jaw range.

Jewel landed on a thistle. She found these little thorns. She sat thinking for some time before she broke one off and fitted it into her nose and blew. It flew, but not in any aimed direction. She tried again. Better. She stuck one in her nose and fluttered off. A few moments later a bird swooped down at her. She spat the thorn out and hit the bird, right in its eye. The grackle screeched as it careened into a tree. A tomcat saw this and ran over to snap up an opportunity kill. The tomcat trotted off with black feathers in his mouth and Jewel fluttered away.

She fluttered back to the columbine bush for a drink of nectar. She was shaken. She had never killed a bird before.

The bee buzzed hurriedly away. The spider sucked himself up into his web. She heard all kinds of bugs saying things like:

“Run! Bird killer.”

“Agh…Attack butterfly!”

“Where?” said Jewel. She was a little too stressed and thirsty to care. She took a deep drink of nectar. She sat coiling and uncoiling her nose and slowly folding and refolding her wings out to relax.

She fluttered over to sit with the social butterflies, but they all squealed and fluttered away from her.

“Agh…Attack butterfly!”

“Killer!”

“Murderer!”

“Fly!”

She settled back down on her columbine bush again. She heard the aphid’s constant spitting. She looked down and she saw the aphid.

“Hello down there.” she said.

…spit…spit…”Hi.” he said.

“Are you still my friend...even though I’m a bird killer?” Jewel said.

“Butterflies don’t eat aphids.” Spit…spit….

“I’m glad I have one friend left. You’re the only one with any common sense.” Jewel said.

Jewel listened to him spit for awhile. “I thought killing a bird would make me feel powerful, and secure. It doesn’t. It just makes me feel alone, more so than ever.”

The aphid didn’t answer her. He did pause his spitting for a moment.

After several days of evoking fear in the insect community, Jewel was depressed. It takes a lot for a butterfly to be depressed.

“I should just fling myself into the spider web and end it all.” she said. She didn’t. It just took time to get used to her new life. She still flew with a thorn in her nose, and she did feel more secure. Days came, and days went.

One evening she was sitting in the tree and she went to sleep. That night the Fairy King’s nephew, Jack, flew through the cold autumn night. He painted the leaves with fire colors, yellows, oranges and reds. He grew ice crystals everywhere he went. The crystals of ice chilled her body and she fell from the tree to the ground.

In the morning when the sun’s first rays fell on her spiritless body, black ants came like solemn pallbearers and carried her away under the earth.

She had many generations of children, and grandchildren. They all kinda looked like her. Birds avoided her children because in every generation there was at least one attack butterfly.

END