By Winnie Deng

The curious little caterpillar stalks the many intertwining branches. Having known from early on of the different stages in its miniscule insect life, the caterpillar is none too fearful of becoming the butterfly that all its friends dreams of becoming. Having grown up as the inquisitive one out of its clan, this particular little caterpillar loves to explore and eagerly awaits the day when it enters its next stage in life – becoming the chrysalis.

Today, that time has come. Even as it tentatively latches itself against its favourite secret spot on a small twig of a branch on the oak tree of which it was born and grew up in, the little caterpillar has already begun fantasizing of the beauty that it will soon possess as a full grown butterfly. It hopes for the most unique wings possible - with the most colourful & the prettiest patterns; that it will be without a doubt the fairest of them all. Even in its dreams, ideas of its future swivels in its delicate little mind, never expecting or wanting anything more than to spread its wings.

A tiny little peek of the outside world, taken as the caterpillar slowly awakes. Light instantly shines through and blinds its frail eyes. Instinctively, it quickly closes its eyes. It was not as quick as it should’ve felt. Perhaps the eyelids felt a bit heavy. But it willed itself to open its eyes once more. Again light filled its vision. It realized gradually what was peculiar. Things indeed were colourful. No longer is its vision tinted red and green. Another thought surfaced. The ground on which it lies is rough, & hard – barely close to the cushiony feeling of its cocoon. The once small caterpillar twitched. Even a twitch seemed burdening. After a struggle with itself for what seemed like 10 insect years, it bended – a very curious and strange attribute. As the being tossed over, it caught a glimpse of its bulky frame. It was long, but not symmetrical, as the caterpillar had recalled of many butterfly figures it had seen. This one was particularly large. It felt nothing like what its fellow colony members have told of the metamorphosis. Despite the strangeness of being the supposed butterfly it had become, it never gave hope once of spreading its brand new pair of wings. Carefully, it twitched and tried to flutter. After a series of twitches, the creature that was once upon a time the small little caterpillar that had forever dreamed of opening its wings, struggled to open its wings, but to no avail.

Finally, it laid still, giving up on how to operate its own body. Though young, it was not stupid. It realized that it was trapped in no body of a butterfly. Though it delighted in the fact that it could now see the entire spectrum of colours, it found no joy whatsoever in discovering how to crawl while dragging along probably an entire twig. In fact, its own frame almost resembles the gigantic creatures that move past each day back in its caterpillar life, and rob the caterpillar of its food supply – the leaves and flowers, and in the process giving its home – the branches – almost an earthquake like effect. Lying on its back again, it looked up at the mass of blue that hovered above it. Blocking the sky is a large object. Though the object seemed large to its eyes, the being could tell with its new and improved vision, that it is actually the tree branches of which it once grew up in, realizing at the same time that its theory – back when it was an insect - that its home was the largest thing that existed in the world was in fact probably not.

A voice was heard close to it. It looked up and saw maybe a creature of its own size. The little human girl was actually inviting the child her own age that lay before her to play with her. The caterpillar-turned-human has yet to know what the girl was, or what she was saying. The sound resembled that of a high pitched screech the neighbouring beetles crickets often made, but somehow the little caterpillar found the sound familiar. Perhaps it was adapting to its new environment already. Though still upset that it has no wings, this particular little caterpillar was never one to give up hope. It retained its eagerness to explore and start a new adventure. Perhaps being able to fly high up and showing off to its siblings that it was the fairest of the butterflies, was definitely the preferred choice, but the little butterfly was willing to explore human life as well. Slowly, after twitching some more, it was able to crawl over and work its way around to the little girl and to greet her.