©2001 by Kerri R. Klein
One fine day Adeline the butterfly said to her butterfly friends, "I wonder what it would be like to surf?"
"Surf? What's that? Is that a new kind of flower?" said Ralphie, a butterfly who was not overly experienced in butterfly things, especially when it came to the naming of flowers.
"No, silly goon," said Adeline, "To surf upon the moving blue puddle over there, beyond the gritty shifty brown stuff that is hard to land on."
"What gritty brown stuff?" asked Ralphie.
"Never mind," said Adeline.
Adeline knew of no other butterfly who wished beyond their garden by the big blue puddle, filled with flowers of all names, colors and sizes, even the smelly marigolds. She liked to hide in the grape arbor on quieter days and watch the big blue puddle, with its moving white floating dots and giant mobile beige and brown dots trodding upon the gritty brown stuff, making a racket and plunging in and out of the puddle. Adeline wanted to plunge, she wanted to feel the big blue puddle moving around her. Astasia, the big bossy butterfly, insisted that she had never ever seen a butterfly leave the garden and come back in one piece, especially to surf or whatever you call it.
But Adeline had other ideas on the matter.
The very next morning, while resting upon a skinny lavender leaf, Adeline decided to go.
She had to know the secrets behind the big blue puddle, and the treasures sparkling within.
The draft tossed her through the crowd of moving giant dots, and she finally floated out into the blue.
A sudden butterfly chill swept over her and for just a moment she thought her wings might explode. Then she calmly glided on a most convenient burst of wind, and gazed peacefully down at her landing area as it tossed and made strange slapping sounds not unlike the funny rain machine in the garden, the one that meant sudden butterfly death to any butterflies in its path.
Suddenly the wind stopped breathing.
"Oh dear," said Adeline, to no one in particular.
Bits of air began to fall around her, and Adeline began to fall with them.
"Here I go," she thought.
The wetness of the puddle reached up to her tiny claw feet, and she wished to touch it very softly so that she would not shatter the delicate surface.
But it sucked her in just the same.
***
Adeline awoke several butterfly hours later upon the brown gritty stuff, finding small bits ground into her delicate orange, black, and white wings. She had a most horrible headache.
"But I have learned to surf," she thought. "What other butterfly can boast of that?"
She smiled her butterfly smile, and it was a smile big enough to break the giant warm ball of light in the sky into a million pieces.
Then, she sighed a sigh big enough to send a thousand sailors to sea.
She did not seem to notice that her wings were torn and tattered-they did not seem to respond very quickly when she tried to flap them.
"I am so tired," she thought.
"Perhaps I should take a nap. But it is so cold out here in the wind. I wish I was nearer to the grape arbor, but I have no strength to flap there now."
She pondered a minute more, and then began to slowly lose sight of the big warm ball hovering over the puddle, even as it asked her to join in the dancing light parade.
"But I am so tired," she thought.
And she thought some more then.
And then she rested in between thoughts.
"What a wonderful thing, to surf, to feel these things that I feel, a special freedom I have never before known."
Just then, a giant beige beanstalk dot moved towards her, where she sat surrounded by various things that had been surfing with her, mostly rocks and a few shiny pieces, as well as several waterlogged ladybugs and dragonflies.
"It's all over!" one of the ladybugs moaned.
"Nonsense," thought Adeline.
The beige dot came very close. Adeline felt fuzzy all over.
***
The next day, Ralphie was flapping in among the grapes, seeking out a super-sweetened ripe cluster of fruit. He made a discovery.
"What have we here?" he said to himself.
"Oh no! Not her!"
Curled in a tiny butterfly ball, Adeline patiently laid upon a large grape leaf, her tiny butterfly smile swallowing up all the light for inches and inches as it poured from her small quiet wings, now impossibly broken and battered.
"Now I know what it means to surf," Ralphie thought.
"Oh, Adeline, what a horrid, horrid, thing to go and do!"
Ralphie began to weep great mighty butterfly tears. His tears fell upon Adeline's wings. He noticed for the first time the magnificent beauty of the tears as they fell upon the silent butterfly.
She seemed to ooze a hovering halo of pure and spotless happiness.
"Oh dear," thought Ralphie.
Ralphie smiled widely and sucked in the light.
With all of his courage in his toes, he caught the next burst of wind.
<3
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