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Friday, 10 April 2009

The Butterfly's Tale



A glasswing butterfly

This is homework for my writing group. I had to write something incorporating these seven words - we each chose one at random from the dictionary:

chance, butterfly, responsible, drab, firefly, tube, fastidious




The Butterfly’s Tale


(A very short story)


"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you"

Nathaniel Hawthorne




Along with the hordes, an unusual butterfly flew in the just-opened carriage door of the London tube. A very rare irridescent glasswing butterfly that shone like sunlight on stained glass in colours of blue, green, rusty gold and white. Its effect amongst we travellers was like that of a rainbow on a dullish day.

Enlightened onlookers in the carriage suspected it to be a just-passed soul fluttering by, as they do, to comfort a grieving loved one.

(I knew better).

One lucky lady found a seat. If I was kind I would say she was nondescript but if I was honest I would say she was prim and proper looking, glasses perched on the edge of her nose, sad-eyed and clothes far too drab (a librarian?).

A man stood near to her and looked around with the air of someone who thought himself a wee bit superior. If I was kind I would say he was clean and smartly turned out but if I am to be honest he seemed to me dull and far too fastidious for his own good (an accountant?).

The atmosphere, which had previously been cheerless and dark, grew brighter as glowing sparks from the butterfly started to burn as it landed on the windowpane between the dull accountant and the sad librarian. Their eyes were drawn to it and then to each other and, as they say in books, a smile passed between them.

(We psychic ones call it energy
).

I knew a passion was ignited in that moment and perhaps (as I have the Gift) only I saw it, but the butterfly was slowly undergoing a metamorphosis and its sparks became flames.

The creature had become a firefly.

(My spell had worked
).

And then I too had a flash, a flash of the fortune teller, the true sign of a witch,

(It happens a lot).

In their future lives together as man and wife the dull but now happy accountant and the sad but now fulfilled librarian would describe how they met as pure Chance and Chance alone was responsible.

(But as I told you, I know better
).

13 comments:

  1. Hi Cait, hope you get to enjoy a little chocolate over the weekend.hugs Margie.

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  2. Your story leads right to my next favorite things in spring...the first week of May: honeysuckle perfuming the night and fireflies flickering in my back garden!

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  3. Dull, but happy and sad, now fulfilled! Thanks for the smiles. Have a wonderful weekend!

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  4. lovely.
    Irish Whiskey or chocolate?

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  5. Beautifully written Cait. TFx

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  6. A librarian????? I loved it!

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  7. What a lovely unusual little blog, thanks Cait x

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  8. Ooh. Loved this.
    Edward and I send you our sincere wish for a Happy Easter, full of joy and chocolate!!

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  9. But what happened to the butterfly?

    I have seen a pigeon alight and then descend from a tube train a few stations later. Well it's quicker than walking. But surely you might be uneasy if everytime you embarked on public transport you left a taril of random relationships behind you. Would it not be inhibiting?

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  10. Nice one.

    (I bet Fennie's pigeon was a Homing Pigeon cheating when trying to set a new record for flight times.)

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  11. I just followed Kendal Carson to your blog. Thank you for making me smile this wet afternoon.

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  12. Dear Cait,

    I so loved reading your Story, and have always had a fondness for the Nathaniel Hawthorne quote of Butterfly.

    You are a very gifted writer Cait, I hope that you will in time submit your Stories for publication, such a joy to read.

    xx

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment.