Once upon a time

a butterfly escaped from a storybook and entered the world. The real butterflies immediately noticed something was funny about it. It seemed too substantial to be a real butterfly, because of its traces of paper and ink. But it also seemed to only half-exist, having been created from the imagination of its book's author.

Although the real butterflies sensed something odd about the book butterfly, they were kind to it, treated it well, and helped it look after itself. The book buttefly needed the help, because lacking natural instincts it often needed to be told what to do. Despite the friendly reception from the real butterfly, the book butterfly desired to become real, and went about asking everyone how it could do so.

A toad suggested that it should just wait because the passing of time would render it real. But time passed and nothing happened. A bird suggested (while trying to eat the book butterfly) that the problem was that it had never been a caterpillar, nor even spent time in a coccon. "Perhaps", speculated the bird, "if you behaved as a caterpillar, and made slept in a cocoon, acquiring these experiences would make you real."

The book butterfly tried its hardest to emulate caterpillars. But they were unable to tell that it was not a real butterfly, found its behavior very odd, and most refbuffed it. So after a few days the book buttefly gave up, concluding that it would not be able to acquire the experiences of real butterflies.

Then one day, the book butterfly was flying by the base of a tree when it heard an new sound, the cry of a cicada. Cicadas are very wise, spending years meditating beneath the earth. The book butterfly presented its problem to the cicada. The cicada buzzed for several moments and then suggested that the book buttefly must find the author of its book. Perhaps if the author were to write more about it, perhaps writing that it were real, or writing about its days as a caterpillar, perhaps then it would be real.

The butterfly heeded the cicada's advice, and took years seeking out the author of its book. Eventually the author was found and the butterfly presented its case. The author was remarkably happy to fulfill the request, and the butterfly soon felt very real. But it was never sure about whether it was real and in the world, or merely back where it had started and in a book.

Lepidoptera

Sometimes the prettiest caterpillars turn into the plainest little moths.

From:
"I like butterflies" by Gladys Conklin (Holiday House. New York, NY. 1960)