🔵 By Thomas Riffenburg. Photo by lauragrafie.
Somewhere down below the flower graves, beyond the lake that gleamed like ice as the sun shone upon it, nestled amidst the high grass, sat the bright red apple house of Earl the worm. Fate had been cruel to Earl (that’s what he would say anyway) for he believed that he wasn’t supposed to be a worm at all, some mistake had been made at his birth, a horrible mistake indeed. Earl believed he was supposed to be a butterfly, the most loveliest of all the creatures, and all day long Earl would sit at the window of his apple house, starring dreamily into the skies, watching the butterflies fly here and there, their beautiful multi-colored wings glistening like precious stones from the suns rays upon them.
“Oh how I wish I were born a butterfly”, Earl would say over and over to himself…
It was just one such day as that, sitting and dreaming his dreams as the stared into the sky in wonder, that something happened that had never happened, Earl stopped dreaming. At first he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, thought it some horrible nightmare, but as the pollen dust rose in a cloud over the flower grave, Earl knew this nightmare was real… a butterfly had just fallen out of the sky! In the mind of Earl, butterflies were like angels, no harm could come upon them. They weren’t supposed to be subject to the pains of life, he couldn’t imagine an image of an angel with scars, and most certainly they didn’t have these unseen scars like everyone did, they were immune to such things, weren’t they…?
Earls eyes darted from the flower graves to the sky, and back and back they went, surely the other butterflies would help… it seemed no one was… “I’ll help!” Earl shouted (though no one was around.) And off he raced in his apple seed car to the flower grave. What he found when he go there, was not what he expected at all, the butterfly was passed out, wings broken, and still she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen…
It took weeks for Lily to heal from her injuries, unfortunately she would never fly again, Earl learned that even angels can get scars. It’s strange though, the little window where Earl used to spend all his days, it never again had anybody look out of it and dream. Earl never did have much time for dreams about flying, instead he discovered something entirely new, love. He and lily fell happily in love, neither one really thinking about had been, just what was, and would you believe it, that little apple house Earl loved so much, well, they had to leave it, they moved into a watermelon, to make room for all the new family members that seemed to come around ever 9 months!…
Early and Lily learned, that it’s not always what we think we want that makes us happy, neither got what they wanted, yet neither would trade anything for what they had, seems fate knows best after all, and like Earl discovered, sometimes right where you are is where you need to be, because dreams have a way of falling right in your lap.
The End!