The Frog and the Butterfly

One summer day a caterpillar  munched across a leaf, eating and eating and leaving behind the sharp edges of her designs.   Below her a busy frog caught her attention with his handsome “Crock crock.”  She crept to the edge of her leave and peered down at him.

“Hello,” she said. “Look!  We are the same color!”

“Correct correct,” agreed the frog, filling his lungs and sitting stoically on his log.

The caterpillar never stopped moving for very long and she continued on her way munching, day after day, feeling the warm sun on her back and listening to the little frog always singing the same song  beneath her. How she loved to creep to the edge of her leaf and gaze down at him with his beautiful smooth, green skin.

“Frog,” she said one day, “you are so beautiful.”

“Thank you,” he said and then “crock crock crock,” just like always.

If she had been created with shoulders, she would have shrugged her tiny shoulders but since she didn’t have any she just hurried on her way because there was so much eating to do. She worried about all the leaves she still had to eat. 

 In the cool mornings, surrounded by those morning bird sounds she loved so much, she ate across her leaves listening to her frog friend. He got quiet in the hot afternoons but she never stopped eating. In the evenings while she was resting, sometimes under a curled leave while the rain splattered around her, his croaking lulled her to sleep.  

One day while her frog was still singing his song below her she realized that she could not take another bite of another leaf.  Leaves leaves leaves! She wanted nothing more to do with any more leaves. She curled up inside a special cocoon where nothing more touched her and she could think her solitary thoughts. Like in a dream, she heard her froggy singing, and felt the warm sun on her, and the memory of the rain which she no longer felt. At the edges of her sleep she was enchanted by the sensation of a wind. She felt herself swinging and spinning and she dared to dream wind dreams. Night after night she rocked and rested and dreamed about her wind. One day she woke up and looked around. She clung trembling to a leaf, resting.  

“How strange!” she thought.  The leaf that before she had so much loved to eat was now just a green resting place under her tiny feet. As she tried to get her bearings, she heard the familiar crock crock from her froggy friend below.

“Hello,” she greeted him shyly.

“Crock crock.  You’ve changed,” was all that he said.

She smiled a big butterfly smile and said “I know!  I’ve been working really hard and dreaming strange dreams of the wind.”

And this wind, the wind that she had dreamed of, found her on her leaf and stirred her new wings.  She trusted, and she rose and flittered erratically away.  Oh!  How to describe the pure thrill of those first moments alone with her wind and her wings fluttering above a breathtaking world!  She found flower after beautiful flower beckoning her onward.  She saw many other butterflies above the meadows in the sun, but never did she spot one who was just like her.  She lived alone with her wind and the vibrant quilt of the delicious flowers.  And when she rested she remembered her beautiful frog by his cool water, and listened for his song.

One day, missing her stationary frog friend too much, she fluttered back to his pond.  She perched delicately on a leaf above his head.  “Hello!”she called excitedly with her little heart swelling with joy.  “Did you miss me?”

“Crock crock,” said the froggy.  “Of course I did.”

She tiptoed closer to hear his song better and to see his dear, handsome froggy form that she had missed so much.  “Oh froggy,” she sighed, “I’ve missed you so.”

As she peered down at her friend she noticed how her wings were reflected in the water in back of him.

“Look!”  she cried excitedly.  “You have wings just like mine!  Try to move them, froggy!  See if you can fly too and come with me to see the world!”

She moved her wings gently back and forth admiring the way that her frog and she were linked together in that moment in their reflection in the pond.

Below her the frog’s smooth chest rose and fell as always as he appeared to be contemplating her suggestion.  He made a decision; the only decision a frog could ever make.  He shot out his tongue and Snap!  she was gone.

The sun glistened on one of the butterfly’s wings turning slowly in the wind on top of the pond, and it made the butterfly scales shine on his froggy lips as he sang his song of always “Crock crock.”