Valentine’s Day Butterflies
"Everyone knew this was the best time to catch butterflies"
One day a year the children come out of their playgrounds and clubhouses to catch their butterflies.
Now, the butterflies flew across town all the time. Whether it was sunny or fall, rainy or winter, the little things could bump into you at any moment. But on this day, this one special day, the butterflies would flap into the air in a big cloud of colors and spirals and weave their way through the streets. Everyone knew this was the best time to catch them.
You must know that a butterfly cannot be captured by a simple net, at least not for long. A butterfly needed to be impressed, tricked, or dazzled to be caught. It was something earned, not something taken.
So the children did all manner of impressive things to earn their butterflies. Colorful lights and flashy hats. Some would play a beautiful song, others would paint a stunning picture. Others would courageously swing very large objects, others would raise up sweet tasting nectar.
The gardener's son trailed the crowd. The children had been given off from work that day, but he still carried his little spade regardless. While the baker’s boys offered up delicious smelling pies, the barwoman’s daughter flashed a few bottles that she was far too young for, and maestra’s son danced in beautiful circles, the gardener’s son ignored the colorful sky and knelt down to the dirt. As the other children frolicked and chased around him, he focused on planting a single seed.
The fisherman’s daughter, a brief acquaintance of his, approached his little garden.
“What are you doing?”
“Gardening.”
She frowned. “You do know what day it is right?”
“I do.”
“Don’t you want a butterfly?”
“I do.”
“So why are you gardening?”
The boy shrugged, “It's what my mother suggested I do.”
“I don’t think the butterflies find gardening that impressive.”
“You are probably right.”
“Then why do it?”
“Cause it's what I want to do.”
“And if you don’t get a butterfly?”
“Then at least I’ll have a garden.”
The fisherman’s daughter gave him a quizzical smile. She looked up at the sky, then back at the dirt, and sat down next to him.
Soon the sky started to fall asleep, and one by one the children walked home. Some carried butterflies, and in their elation lorded their prizes over their peers. Their friends without butterflies went home just a bit more tired, a bit more sad, and a bit more cracked. The gardener’s son and fisherman’s daughter wandered back to the village long after the moon had risen, happy with how they spent their day.
The cycle repeated itself for the next few years. Every Butterfly Day, as the other kids chased and chased and chased, the gardener’s son and fisherman’s daughter would sit and plant their garden. They would talk and laugh and argue. She would pour mud on his hair and he would splash her with water.
Over time their garden grew, with blueberries and strawberries, pears and pumpkins, and a little olive tree that stood in its center.
The gardener’s son, a little more big and a little more tired, watched as the other children charged out from the village. Some were new faces, fresh and ready to chase the colors in the sky. Others were repeat faces, whose attempts to keep a butterfly got more desperate every year. There were several no-shows. Some who had got so tired, sad, and cracked that they stopped believing the butterflies’ lies. Others who had found their butterfly many years ago and no longer needed to chase.
“Do you think this is working?” asked the boy to the fisherman’s daughter.
“Definitely, look how big the blueberries are.”
“I meant the butterflies.”
“What about them?”
“Do you think we’ll get ours?”
The girl grinned and pulled the boy to his feet. “Don’t know, but at least we’ll have a garden.”
As they walked back to the village, a little orange butterfly landed on their garden’s central tree. Hanging from every twig and every branch, were rows and rows of cocoons.
Slowly, one opened.