Susan the Butterfly

Once upon a time, there was a field with many colors of butterflies fluttering between the many colored flowers. There were purple butterflies with blue spots visiting the red and yellow flowers. There were orange butterflies with white lines visiting the purple and blue flowers. There were green butterflies with black blobs visiting the white and pink flowers. And then there was Susan.

Susan was a rare breed of butterfly with wings of white and a few grey fringes on the ends. Susan had exquisite wings and she was complimented on them constantly. Susan hated when she was complimented on her “freak” wings. She thought that because she had no color on her wings, somehow they weren’t as good.

You might think that Susan can just forget about her wings, it’s not like she’s ever looking at them, but you have no idea how much butterflies talk about color! It’s nonstop with those bugs whenever they start talking at the stream! “What color wings did your niece get?” “What color flower did you say that pollen came from?” “Oh look how cute those wings are, the color goes so well with your antennae!” Susan couldn’t go an hour, let alone a day without being reminded about the lack of color on her own wings.

At least she had James, her best friend since they were both caterpillars. In fact, James dropped out just before graduating from larvae school and he had been living as a caterpillar for quite some time now. It’s not like James was a failure, he was just living his own way and Susan was fine with that. Susan also liked James’ lack of wings so she didn’t have to feel self-conscious of her own.

After a long day of pollenating flowers, Susan headed over to James’ house in the tall grasses. She fluttered in to see James playing a game of Pebbles with a slug, a grasshopper, and a spider. She looked at James with a worried expression.

James quickly explained, “Hi Susan! These are some of my friends: Gerry is the slug, Carlos is the spider, and this grasshopper over here is Bri. We’re playing Pebbles, want to join next round?”

Susan hesitantly said, “Hey James. No, I’m good. But could I actually talk with you for a moment?”

James turned back to his friends and gestured for them to continue without him. He and Susan walked a little ways before James said, “So what’s going on?”

Susan began to tell James about her awful day, “Well, first a new bloom of yellow flowers with red tips came in today so everybody told their favorite new bloom stories! Then three new graduates joined us, a blue and two purples!”

James continued to calmly look at Susan and nod, the smallest smile on his face. Susan continued, “I’m sorry, I’m complaining to you and taking you away from your friends to do it. I should go.”

James reassured Susan, “Sue, you’re my oldest friend. I can always make time for you to vent about a bad day. It doesn’t make my day worse to hear about yours.”

“Thanks, James. I think I’m going to take a fly around to clear my head.” Susan murmured, mostly to herself.

She lifted her wings for takeoff and before she could jump up, James said, “Remember not to let the color thing bother you. You’re a butterfly and I think that’s pretty darn cool. The color of your wings has nothing to do with who you are on the inside.”

Susan jumped up high and called back “Have fun with your friends! You were always better at seeing the inside.”

“Always make friends with everyone, Sue! No matter how different they are. It pays off!” James said as he turned to rejoin his friends.

Susan awoke the next morning to a deafening roar. She quickly jumped into the air to get a better look at what was going on. She heard some high pitch beeps and the crash of metal into the ground. From her midair perch, she saw a herd of large yellow beasts that were trampling all over the bushes just past the flower field. She instantly headed to the stream to see if anyone knew what was going on.

Susan landed at the banks of the stream into a crowd of nervous butterflies and caterpillars. Bruce, a large butterfly with blue wings and a brown spot, fluttered up to make a statement.

“Friends,” Bruce began, “It seems as though some team of monsters are taking up refuge in the bushes beyond our flower field. The monsters appear to have no interest in our field or us. Without us the flowers will surely die so I think it is our duty to stay here!”

A loud cheer from the crowd affirmed Bruce’s decision and so the butterflies continued to live their lives, only slightly bothered by the noise of the monsters next door. They seemed to be working on creating a large, grey box with black stems on the top. When they were finally done with their project, the yellow monsters left and abandoned their grey box, which started
to pump smoke out from its stems.

The bright field soon became foggy and the butterflies had to double their efforts to even find the flowers on the ground. A few days after the box began belching smoke, the butterflies’ problems got much worse. A group of birds found the foggy field and noticed how easy it was to see the colorful butterflies fluttering around in the white smoke.

The next few weeks were a dark time for the population of butterflies. The smokey air meant that the birds could see the butterflies long before they were seen themselves. The birds ate well, and the butterflies dwindled in numbers.

To Susan’s surprise, her white wings meant that the birds couldn’t see her at all in the smokey air. She could flutter from flower to flower and never have to worry about the birds while the butterflies that used to make her jealous risked everything to even pollenate a single flower.

One day on the bank of the stream, Bruce made an announcement to the small crowd of remaining butterflies.

“In these dark times, we must keep focused on our duty to pollenate our flower field. We may be low in numbers but we are still high in spirit,” Bruce paused for a moment before adding, “and we might have a plan.”

The crowd murmured but Bruce continued, “Our population increases by two more today: Odessa and Billy have emerged from their cocoons with healthy wings!”

A few hands of applause could be heard but these were tragic times and it was hard to show enthusiasm for two new meals for the birds. The applause stopped and the entire crowd fell silent when the two new butterflies flew from the tall grasses to join them at the bank of the stream. Odessa and Billy were both white.

Susan jumped up and rushed to see those wings. Her wings. Their wings. The wings that she had never seen on anyone but her before. They were beautiful and Susan could finally understand why she had been paid so many compliments.

“Oh good, and Susan is here,” Bruce exclaimed as he finished his announcement, “We may not always look the same, but our kind will always be here to pollenate our flowers!” The cheers that followed would have made you believe not one butterfly had been lost to those birds.

Just as Bruce predicted, the white butterflies could not be seen by the birds and so they continued to survive while the colored butterflies were picked off by the birds. More caterpillars graduated but it was only the ones with white wings that were able to survive. Soon all of the butterflies in that field had white wings and Susan had never been happier.

“They are all so similar to me! I finally feel like I’m part of the group.” Susan explained to James excitedly. “I have never had so many friends like me in my life, James!”

James nodded but no small smile graced his face. “Look, Sue, I think that this is a bad environment to be in. All this smoke has made it really hard to breathe, not to mention all of the friends that we’ve lost in the last few weeks.” He paused for a moment, “I hear there’s another flower field just over the hill and I think we should go there.”

Susan looked appalled at her longtime friend, “I am finally happy with my life and you want me to leave and go back to the way it was before?! These are my people, they are my kind. They are more like me than you are. It seems like we shouldn’t be leaving them, you should be leaving us!” James tried to reason with her, “Listen to the words you’re saying: my kind, us and them. When did it always become about being a part of a group?”

Susan began to talk slower and quieter “You know that I only ever wanted to become part of a group. Back in larvae school, I always told you about how excited I was to join the butterflies. Then I was cursed to become a butterfly who still wasn’t part of the group. I just wanted to fit in!” Susan paused for a moment, then she decided she wanted to be mean, “Why am I even listening to a caterpillar in the first place?”

James had heard enough. He turned on his heels and marched back to his home in the tall grass. Susan flew off in a huff but she quickly turned around to apologize to James. He had been her oldest and best friend through thick and thin. When she landed outside of James’ house she saw a cocoon hanging from a twig. A grin grew across Susan’s face as she leaped up and flew away.

A few days later, Susan returned to James’ house just in time to see his cocoon start to crack. She landed and called out “James, I’m so proud of you! I can’t wait for you to finally join me.”

With a series of cracks and grunts, James crawled out of his cocoon and spread his new wings for the first time. Glorious, green wings. Susan’s heart dropped.

“Oh no! You’re green. I thought you were going to finally be like me” Susan cried out.

“That’s it right there!” James said with a scratchy voice. He coughed and continued more clearly, “First we were caterpillars together and then we’re different when you become a butterfly. Then I become a butterfly and you still think we’re different because of the color of my wings. Don’t you see how similar we are? You can never be part of a group if you’re only ever looking at what makes us different, because you’re always going to find something. You are one of a kind, Sue, there’s nobody like you.”

Susan had tears in her eyes. “You’re right,” she said, “you are my oldest friend and you’re right. This place isn’t healthy to live for us; I’ll go with you to the field over the hill.”

James smiled big and with a large leap, he thrust himself into the air to fly for the first time. Susan followed her friend, watching his wings beat against the wind.

The two flew directly for the hill and before they knew it they had cleared the smokey air. They were now flying in clear skies when all of a sudden Susan was reminded of why she didn’t leave the smoke. A shrieking caw sounded from her left and Susan turned to see a pair of birds quickly flying at them. She closed her eyes, fluttering in one place, ready for the end.

She continued to flutter, eyes shut. She kept fluttering. Then she opened her eyes to see everything as it was. She looked down and saw James talking with the two birds on the ground. Susan was stunned. Before she knew it, James was flying back up to her and the birds were flying away.

“How did you stop them from eating us?” she asked him, surprised she was still alive.

James looked Susan in the eye and smiled, “I told you, Sue, make friends with everyone. No matter how different they are. It pays off.”

Susan and James flew the rest of their way over the hill and found the flower field just as James had predicted. The two introduced themselves to the population of butterflies living there and they were granted permission to live with them.

A young caterpillar walked up to Susan and said, “I love your wings, they’re so different.”

Susan smiled at the young one and said “It’s nice to be different, but I like to focus on what makes us the same.”