.The Fellowship of
Butterflies
Clop,
Clop, Clop, Eva could hear her high heels
pounding on the sidewalk as she tried to maintain
her composure. She made her way around the corner
of Wilhelmstrasse onto Kaiser-Friedrich-Platz,
next to the Hotel Nassauer Hof, to the nearest
café. Grateful for a place to rest both her body
and mind, she sat down at the first available
table. The afternoon was bathed in warm sunlight
that radiated a golden glow from high overhead,
making it an altogether pleasant day. If only her
mood had matched the optimistic weather
everything would have been wonderful.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. Eva had been
trying to come to grips with a fierce and
frightful turn of events all morning long. In the
past twenty-four hours she was dumped by her
boyfriend of three years, laid off from her job
at a much-hyped internet start-up company. She
had also been asked to find a new place to live
by her roommates of the last five years. Life was
falling in on all sides, and she had no idea how
to make lemon aide when all her lemons seem to
disappear like magic before her eyes.
An
attractive waiter quickly took her order for a
glass of wine. She had preferred a whiskey
straight up but, considered midday was a bit too
early for heavy drinking. It might make things
worse than they already were, Wiesbaden is a
smallish town, and someone might spot her
drowning her sorrows. She knew she had to keep
her head up, by tomorrow she would be searching
for a new job. Just after the waiter returned
with the wine, a beautiful blue and black
butterfly landed on the edge of the chair across
the table. Its graceful legs clung to the chair
while its wings moved up and down, slowly and
rhythmically. As the light fell on his wings,
they began to shimmer like metallic dust. She
watched them flicker for a few moments before
unexpected changes began to occur.
Slowly,
his four wings began to shrink, receding into his
body, until, just in the area where the two wings
overlapped, two arms emerged. At the same time,
the two long black antennas receded slowly back
into the head. The head itself grew larger and
rounder. The thorax was contracting. It began to
stretch upward until it began to look like a
human throat. The four upper legs shrunk little
by little until they disappeared into the
thinning body. The abdomen grew and sprouted legs
with small feet and tiny toes, which hung over
the edge of the chair. A pale blue man, the size
of a child’s toy, no more than six inches
long, sat staring at her, with huge black eyes.
Unbelievable!
It was the first thought that passed through her
head. She looked over to the next table hoping to
see similar reactions but, the couple was so
engrossed in their conversation and they
hadn’t noticed the blue man. Neither had
anyone else. The bustling café continued it
previous pace; the noise level didn’t vary a
decibel. Even the waiter seemed oblivious. He
hurriedly dropped off a glass of red wine, on his
way to a neighboring table, with a large plate of
Parma ham and melon and two glasses of Prinz
Metternich Sekt.
They
sat staring at each other for a long time; until
finally the blue man opened his small mouth.
"Hello Eva, my name is Paul." The voice
was light and airy, almost enchanting. Startled,
she looked around, somewhat self-consciously. The
café patrons continued their discussions
undisturbed. Turning back around, she glared at
the creature opposite, a little unsure of her
sanity. Once again, he spoke, " Don’t
look so surprised. I am only here to cheer you
up" Slowly she spoke, looking around
furtively to make sure she wasn’t making a
fool of herself, "How do you know I need
cheering up?" "Well, who wouldn’t
need cheering up, if they had just lost a job,
boyfriend, and home in the last twenty-four
hours." It was too much. Shocked by his
knowledge, she couldn’t speak. Now she had
lost it all, even her mind, or at least, that is
what she was thinking to herself.
She
wanted to get up and run, but her feet
wouldn’t move with her thoughts. Her whole
body felt paralyzed. He knew exactly what she was
thinking; and before she could move or speak he
said, "Don’t run away I’m not
going to hurt you and, you never know I might
even help. Besides, the way I see it, you
don’t have anything left to lose." She
had to admit he was right even if she didn’t
quiet know how he knew about her problems. She
looked over into his dark glassy eyes and asked
him just how he knew about her problems.
"Oh, why does it matter" "I see
and hear a lot of things, and besides it is easy
to spot a person with a troubled mind".
"How is that?" she asked. "Most
people with problems walk around with their
shoulders hunched over and their heads
practically boring into the sidewalk. If that
isn’t enough, they throw themselves into a
chair like a sack of potatoes, with no regard
whatsoever to the natural contour of the body and
its posture. In fact, good posture, something
that sends out positive signals to the world,
could just as well be as difficult for people
with domestic problems, as grappling with a
foreign language in a foreign land."
At
this she tried to sit up straight if only to put
him at bay but, he was right good posture was
like a foreign language, a great struggle. She
slouched back into her comfortable but troubled
state. "I thought you wanted to cheer me
up?" she said while looking down into her
lap. He remained quiet for a few minutes while he
studied her features. Suddenly, without warning
he spoke. " How would you like to forget
your problems and escape to another life?"
"If only that were possible," she heard
herself saying. "Of course its possible,
I’m here to help you." Without knowing
why, she trusted him, and it took only a few
moments for her to decide to follow him. Leaning
across the table, she asked in a quietly hushed
voice, "what do I have to do?"
"Close your eyes and think about the beauty
of butterflies and the nature of being one. In
other words picture yourself as a beautiful,
graceful full-bodied flying machine with large,
shimmering wings. Let the nature of its beauty
pierce your mind and enter into its realm of
unconsciousness.
She
closed her eyes, holding the exquisitely long
glossy lashes tightly together, trying to image a
butterfly. As she did, she could feel her heart
beat a little faster and, her pulse throb
violently around the wrist. She took a deep
breath and noticed a tingling sensation in the
top of her head, something pushing through her
scalp. The feeling was not one of pain or
discomfort, just an odd throbbing warm expansion
of the body. It passed from her head to her back,
and as it spread, she was forced to change
position in the chair to accommodate some
metamorphosis occurring down the spine. While she
sat hunched over the table, she noticed paralysis
had set in below the waist. Slowly the sense of
her legs were replaced up above her waist, and
her arms were shifted upward and outward while
her throat lengthened itself replacing her chest
and adjusting into a thin oblong frizzy sphere.
Wings began to sprout from her new thorax. Four
lightweight, powdery, shimmering metallic wings
unfolded like Chinese fans, overlapping in the
middle and dwarfing what had by now becoming a
tiny body.
When
she opened her eyes, she found herself on the
seat of the chair but since shrinking she could
no longer see the table top, only underneath to
the chair opposite. With some effort, flapping
her wings and trying to lift off from her spindly
legs, she managed to maneuver her new body to the
top of the table. There, still on the back of the
opposite chair was her new companion, who was
also, once again in butterfly nature.
She
gazed around to see if anyone had taken notice of
the miraculous transformation and, just when she
thought no one had seen it, a small boy in the
caviar shop across the courtyard caught her eye.
He was standing with his faced pressed into the
glass, as his mother made a purchase, watching a
fairy tale unfold. Paul looked turned around to
see the spectator but, both knew, no one would
believe what he saw.
Turning
back around to face Eva, Paul said in a low
voice, "shall we go?" She nodded in
agreement, but before they could go, she looked
down to the table, with a show of doubt about
whether she could manage the power of flight.
"We’ll take it slowly at first until
you get used to the wings and the currents,"
he said, as she looked up in anticipation. She
moved slowly from side to side on her thin legs
and began, with some effort to flap her massive
blue and shiny black wings. Then as if by magic,
she was airborne if only slightly. Laughing and
the feeling of air passing over her body and
through her wings he landed again on the table.
Then they both flapped their wings and started
off, Paul flawlessly and Eva a bit awkwardly at
first. They sailed up onto a lazy current and
followed it around the courtyard, gazing down at
all the café patrons and window shoppers
mingling around the outer edges of the courtyard.
Gliding
over to the far corner of the square they floated
down over the bubbling fountain lowering their
graceful bodies just enough to dangle their tiny
legs in the raising mist. For fun, they hovered
over the heads of two young boys, as they tried
to flick water onto each other unnoticed by their
parents. Enchanted by the bright creatures they
frolicked in a game of catch, only the boys never
managed to catch Eva or Paul. When the children
lost interest, the two took their leave, flying
across the Wilhelmstrasse into the park that
borders the casino, through the side street and
into the Kurpark. Just as they passed the large
open iron gates, the floral bouquet overpowered
Eva so much that she had to fly back outside the
gates. After taking a long, deep, breath she was
able to enter the park again. But, the scent of
roses, geraniums, and cherry blossoms all mixed
was a new experience. With the long antennas
attached to her head, she could make out not only
the perfume of numerous fragrances mingled
together but, also each distinctive note alone.
The scent was so strong that she found herself
floating head long into a large bed of red and
white decorative flowering plants across from the
park’s outdoor café. To the sound of
laughter and clinking glasses and china, she
unrolled her long thin tubular tongue to take a
sip of life’s sweet nectar. Drop after drop
of sugar liqueur made its way into her stomach
and, she drank and drank moving from soft, lush
rose petals to tiny yellow and purple crocus
blooms. They were barely looking out of the
ground until she felt as if she would burst. Paul
was waiting on a cherry tree branch happy to
watch the child-like abandon of a new butterfly
in flight.
As
the sun slipped down low on the horizon, a warm
spring day drew to a close. They nestled high in
a fragrant Nordic pine for the night. A warm wind
rustled through the branches letting Eva drift
off into a deep, black sleep as crickets chirped,
and frogs strove to out do one another with their
croaking in a nearby pond.
As
morning broke, Eva and Paul sipped on fresh, cool
nectar in the neck of a yellow lily. They moved
from one flower to another until they became
bloated with perfumed liquor, which nearly
weighted their bodies down to the ground. It took
a determined effort for Eva to flap her wings
enough to ride the swift, winds that came at
neatly placed intervals. On really strong gust
sent her right back down to the ground. She
struggled to pull her tiny head up, thrusting her
shoulders back and once more was able to take
flight.
After
digesting the heady liquor, she was able to
master the art of flight. She found herself,
singing and laughing as never before. They spent
the next six days racing from perch to perch.
Buzzing and chasing each other, spiraling high in
the sky only to drop in the wind and descend to
the ground before pushing off to the nearest
bunch of daisies or tulips.
On
the seven days, she noticed Paul was a little
slower. His wings didn’t flap as fast as
hers and his hypnotic eyes were not longer as
piercing as they had been. "What’s
wrong, she asked him "Aren’t you
feeling well."
"Oh,
I’m fine, don’t worry about me,"
he replied. But worry she did. The whole day was
spent perched on top of gladiolas and fragrant
roses, which were opened up as a pillow made out
of tissue paper. She could feel the velvety
petals brush the sides of her face, as she
plunged her head into the middle of the bloom. It
was a place she could have spent a life time. The
sunlight pierced layer upon layer of petals to
create shades of blushing pink she never knew
existed. Up above there was only blue sky as far
as her tiny eye could see, with the occasional
puff of white floating off into the distance.
Despite the beauty above, she preferred to nestle
her tiny body in a cocoon created by the fluffy,
powder puff roses.
Paul’s
death, later that day, intruded on the world of
beauty she had come to inhabit without
inhibition. As he struggled to keep his wings
upright, he whispered with difficulty "meet
me on the other side" and then he closed his
eyes before he slipped from his perch and floated
down into the pond. While the Koi took little
notice of the intrusion into their realm, Eva was
mesmerized by the fluorescent shades of blue and
purple floating up from Paul’s exposed wing.
As his lifeless body floated slowly around the
pond, its beauty disappeared. The sparkling light
evaporated, and Paul’s remains turned into
an ugly moth right before her eyes.
As
she slowly opened her eyes, she was aware of dark
lashes blocking her view. Within minutes her eyes
cleared, just as she began to hear the clanking
of cutlery on china on her right. When she turned
her sore neck toward the noise, she saw a blond
women eagerly lifting a fork full of green salad
toward her red lips. They parted, and the lettuce
disappeared. Eva sat up straight, unsure how long
she had been sitting there. Her Sekt glass was
empty, and her Parma and cheese reduced to a few
crumbles. Lying in the seat next to hers was an
exquisite pink rose. She picked it up and held it
to her nose, drawing in the sweat, calming scent.
Feeling slightly tipsy, she stood up and walked
away from the café. Once she reached the
Goldgasse, her eye was struck by a shiny gold
object in a jewelers atelier. When she stepped
out of the shop back onto the cobblestone street,
she pinned a diamond-encrusted butterfly brooch
to her lapel. Sauntering off into the sunset,
without warning she took a sharp right into the
Grabenstrasse.
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