the caterpillar saw the sun, and it continued munching on the leaves, those sweet and juicy leaves...
it looked around a bit more, and then it saw a butterfly in the sky. it was flying, carried along by the soft breeze. the wingbeats of the butterfly seemed so distant and yet so near.
never did it think that there would come a day when it too would fly, the cerulean sky its backdrop. never did it imagine, nor connect its simple existence of crawling along and eating with that of the feel of the wind and a lightness of being.
then it felt sleepy, drowsy and looked for a place to rest.
no sooner than it had laid its body down, it began sleeping. and the dreamworld seemed at once real and beyond reality. pictures from an old life played, the limits there never more keenly felt. there was a rush of fear, it hardly knew what to expect. but the anticipation, the eagerness, they sat well with the bewilderment the caterpillar felt now. this heady blend would have tired it out, but it lay still and waited.
and the day came when it woke up. it knew the time had come, and struggled in its last lap towards the sky. breaking free of the cocoon, what had protected it all this while...the cocoon now stopped it from reaching the heights it had dreamed of. and then it waited again patiently for its new wings to dry. it had shed its old identity as one doomed to forever trawl the ground. a new strength, a new hope, a new name.
all the fear, all the waiting. was it worth all of this pain?
the caterpillar did not answer. it knew. and it flew away on an upward sweep of new dreams, new hope and the realisation of growth.
the butterfly flapped its wings, recalling for a moment its caterpillar days. and it was glad.
No comments:
Post a Comment