Butterflies and Hurricanes

Mr Butterfly is a bright and busy butterfly who all the other creatures above the green get on with.  Mr Butterfly soars above the ground, greeting the other butterflies in the sky and generally having a lovely time.

One day Mr Butterfly started to feel a little tired, he wasn’t able to fly as far or for as long as usual. He had to keep settling down on the leaves of the flowers; it turned his usual routine upside down. Everytime Mr Butterfly sat he knew that he would fall behind and not get anything done. He did his best to keep up with the other butterflies, he couldn’t understand why he was struggling so.

One day Mr butterfly was soaring a lot lower than the rest of the butterflies, he could not get to their height no matter how he tried. He settled on a leaf as he had done for the week leading up to this point. Before Mr Butterfly could begin to think about making the next leg of his journey he was suddenly imprisoned by a glass jar. He remembered what his parents had told him in that moment. If he stayed too low for too long then he would be in trouble, and now he knew that trouble was a very big jam jar.

The jar was lifted into the air and a lid screwed firmly into place, as quick as the lid was firmly in place the jar was shaken violently. Mr Butterfly bounced off every corner, every surface in the jar. By the time the jar has stopped shaking Mr Butterfly was left lying upside down, he did not know what was happening and he was terrified. Mr Butterfly closed his eyes; he thought that when he opened them this would all be one big nightmare that would be over.

Mr Butterfly woke up, he had fallen asleep right in to the next day. The sun was shining down on him, he could feel the warmth filtering through the thick glass. He stood up from his slumber and the harsh reality of his situation hit him. He was still in the jar, and the jar had been left in the middle of the green where he lived and played. He could see everyone he knew, all his friends and family were playing over the green. They could see him, but they weren’t too sure how to approach him. They had never been in a glass jar before, they weren’t too sure if he could still hear them and talk to them through the side of it.

Mr Butterfly felt an odd sense of being alongside everyone, but being miles away and held back from them due to jar he sat in. He would look out and see his friends playing in the clouds and though he was close, he wasn’t with them. They weren’t taking any notice of him. Mr Butterfly wanted to tell everyone what had happened to him, the horrible shaking and then being captured but he knew they could see he was in the jar so he wasn’t sure why they weren’t asking what had happened.

Mr Butterfly would sit and watch, feeling completely hopeless and unable to help or join in with those outside of the jar, each day would pass and he would sit and watch. 

One day Mr Butterfly looked up and realised something that he had not seen before, the lid was not on the jar. If he could muster up the energy he would be able to get out of this silly jar. How had he not noticed? For the next couple of days Mr Butterfly would try several times a day to fly up and out, but he just couldn’t make it. 

One morning Mr Butterfly sat looking out the jar at the world go by and he heard a voice, it was one of his friends. He had thought they had forgotten about him, but they were here and they were looking down the neck of the jar at him. ‘Come on, you can get out’ they said. Mr Butterfly explained that he couldn’t, that he had tried but he just could not get out of the jar. ‘Don’t be silly, you don’t have to be in there. You can fly out’. Mr Butterfly could not fly out, the jar being shaken had damaged him. He needed time to heal before he could try that, they didn’t understand because no-one had shaken them in a jar before. The friend flew away and Mr Butterfly did try to fly out but he truly could not, he so wanted to, he so wanted to join everyone else.

The next day Mr Butterfly woke up and his two friends were sitting on the neck of the jam jar. ‘We’re going to get you out of there’ they said. Mr Butterfly did not know how they would manage this feat, but he was excited to see. Just as quick as the jar had one day captured him, it suddenly crashed to the ground and he no longer needed to be able to fly to get out. He could crawl out of the jar and he was free again. 

Mr Butterfly crawled out, he stretched his wings. He looked up into the sky and he flapped, but his wings were still not ready to fly. And now Mr Butterfly felt vulnerable to the hungry birds who were looking down on him. He watched as his friends flew by and he knew he would not be able to join them yet either. He was free, but he was still no good to anyone. Mr Butterfly slowly crawled back into the jar, he was safer in there than he was outside at the moment. He knew he would try again tomorrow but today was not the day.

Mr Butterfly woke up to another sunny day on the green. He hadn’t realised but the jar had been placed on it’s base again and so he no longer had the opportunity to crawl outside and be with all of his friends. He was back at square one. Mr Butterfly watched his friends fly by, the familiar buzz of the green doing as it did every day just without him being involved. He started to think that the creatures of the green did not need him to help anymore, they were doing so well. Mr Butterfly shook his head and told himself he was missed and he was needed. He would not let what happened to him stop him from flying free with everyone else. Just as he began to flap his wings the jar suddenly smashed, pieces of jam jar were all around him. Mr Butterfly was free; he had nothing holding him back from his full potential. He took off for the first time in many days. He was flying higher than he ever had, no longer restricted by that big jam jar. He joined his friends on the flowers and over the green, he was back where he belonged. Mr Butterfly sat for a moment to catch his breath, he saw where the jar had been and the remains of it across the ground. Tiny little shards glinting in the sunlight catching his eye. He swooped down to one of them, ‘That’s odd’ Mr Butterfly thought as he sat looking at the smashed glass. ‘I miss it’