Dancing with Butterflies

“Look guys, here comes the sunrise.” Zip yelled. And, several of those sitting in the tree shouted, “Here comes the King and Queen,” I think they were shouting because they couldn’t hear each other over the roar of the crowd greeting the King and Queen. The closer they got the louder the crowd roared. It was a thing of beauty watching the King and Queen as they made their way to the top of Crystal Rock. Crystal Rock, rising up several hundred feet above the ground, was as clear as a beautiful diamond. It was in the center of a large, flowering meadow, surrounded by tall stately trees. It gave me the feeling of being in a fancy ballroom. When the King and Queen landed, the crystals in the rock captured the rising sunlight and bounced it off of their colorful wings, shooting the radiant colors off in every direction. It created a breath taking light show. I had never seen so many beautiful, colored light beams in my entire life-not even a Disney Land. Slowly the King and Queen began to move their giant wings up and down, creating a beautiful melody. I had never heard such wonderful soothing music as this in my life. I listened for a moment and then I realized it was like the music I heard when Ohso took me near the top of the mysterious mountain. As time went on, the beautiful music appeared to mix with the beams of colorful light, filling the entire island with radiant colors and wonderful melody. I felt like I ought to be doing something, but I couldn’t think of anything to do. So, I sat there in awe, taking it all in. “Oh, my, this gives me goose bumps.” Tippy whispered. “Look, I have them too.” Zippy replied. “What’s a goose?” Flitty inquired. “I don’t know,” Tippy impatiently answered. “It’s just a saying I once heard.” “I guess it really doesn’t matter,” Flitty responded. “All I can think about is dancing.” All at once she blurted out in a loud high-pitched voice, “I want to dance right now.” “I do too.” Tippy yelled. “So do I,” Zippy added. “And you guys know that I don’t even like to dance. I don’t know what’s getting into me. It must be something I ate.” Tip interrupted her and said, “Don’t you guys remember that this same thing happened at the last meeting—seven years ago?” “I remember that,” Flitty said, “But, I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to do it. I want to dance and dance all over the sky.” The three of them joined hands and leaped into the air, and danced around Crystal Rock. I didn’t want to sit and watch, so I took off and danced with them. It felt wonderful. Everyone joined in. It was an awesome sight, watching thousands of beautiful butterflies dancing in the sky. After, what seemed like hours, the music stopped and the dancing came to an abrupt end. Everyone went back to their places. As soon as they settled down, the King started speaking. He said “My dear children, once again it is time for some of you mature females to fly across the great river into the land of the Crawling Insects and lay your eggs. You know the climate here, on this island, is too cool to allow the eggs to hatch. They must be laid in the jungle climate.” When the King finished speaking the males began to hang their heads. He turned His attention to them and said, “I know that some of you males want to go too, but you must remain here and pollinate the flowers, with your long strong pollinators. If you don’t all the flowers will die and everyone on the island will starve to death.” Suddenly it became deathly quiet. No one moved or said a word. I found out later, they were all remembering the many horrible stories they had heard about the land of Creeping Insects. No one knew where the stories came from: they just seemed to be a part of everyone’s distant memory. After several minutes passed they started talking again. As I moved around and listened, I realized they were all talking about their friends and loved ones who flew into that terrible forest to lay their eggs and never came back. They were frustrated because they couldn’t understand why they never returned. All at once Zip let out a yell that nearly caused everyone to jump out of the tree. Her yell was immediately followed by her declaration, “I’m not afraid of those crawling creeps. None of them is fast enough to catch me.” “Listen to what you’re saying,” Tippy scolded. She was really angry at her. She went on to say, “No one, I mean, no one, has ever gone over there and lived to talk about it. And I’m sure some of them were as fast as you, Zip!” “Yea,” Flitty added, and told her she was out of her mind. “Well, how about all the baby butterflies that fly back from there. Why don’t the Crawlers eat them up?” Zippy questioned. “I don’t know.” Flitty snapped. “Furthermore, there’s a lot that goes on over there that we don’t know about. And I don’t think we want to know about it either.” Tippy and Flitty sat there staring at her, while Zippy, acted like she hadn’t heard a word they said. Finally Zip casually said, “Just think, we could be the first ones to make it there and back. Then we could tell everyone what really goes on over there. Come on guys, let’s do it.” She pleaded. “You know how much we love a good adventure. Can you think of a more challenging one than this?” Tip and Flit looked at each other in total amazement. They seemed to be dumbfounded. Tippy was sure that Zip was joking, and she appeared to have all she could take...