RAMBLINGS OF THE MIND
Unfortunately, because the cocoon had been split open, the larva did not undergo the process of growing through the hormones JH and Ecdysone. He was born before his time, and his time ended before it could even begin. Like all butterflies, James needed to undergo that pain of molting and growing and pupation. Without the pain, James didn’t have the pleasure of existing as a beautiful butterfly.
This is what Angie called the Intervention and Interruption of Metamorphosis. Angie promised to spend the rest of her life, not only showing off her beauty and her intelligence to the world, but also to prevent IIM from happening to any of the future larvae in the park.
But that will have to wait, as Angie and her friend focused their attention on the burial of her brother, Little Pupa James.
The boy was so engrossed with the wonderful display of solemnity that he didn’t realize he had been staring at the whole event for half an hour already. Then he saw something that forever would change his life – the cocoon. He thought he had seen it before. It was very familiar.
Then he shivered when he realized that it was the same cocoon he had split open three days ago. He did it because he thought the larva inside was suffering from pain. He just wanted to help out and ease the pain. He recognized it because of the distinctive cut he made through his scissors – lengthwise towards right of centre.
On top of the cocoon, was the dead larva, which was ceremoniously carried by several ants, followed by the
butterflies lining up in two columns. With the help of the ants, the butterflies buried their dead – the one Little Huge killed!!!
He knelt down, not as a sign of a religious respect for the dead, but because his knees weakened with the realization that instead of helping the larva, he had killed it. He had never felt so guilty in his life. Then the words of his Arts teacher made a lot of sense.
“Hugh, I did not create this wooden sculpture. It was already there. I just chipped off the unnecessary pieces,” his teacher had replied when people commented on the exquisite creation of art his teacher showed the class. It was a wooden carving of a swan made out of a trunk of a tree from the park.
“It must have been so painful for the trunk when you chiselled those parts, sir,” said Little Huge imagining that the trunk was the swan in real life.
“There are things we only achieve by going through trials and difficulties in life. My friend phrased it a lot better,” the teacher said.
“How did he write it, sir?” little Huge asked.
“He said it this way: ‘The rainbows are not made without the millions of droplets of rain, just as happiness is not achieved without going through lots of pain.’” the teacher recited as if it was a poem by Edgar Allan Poe and not from the ramblings of an unknown author whose mind cannot stop thinking and whose heart cannot stop sharing.