Parable of the butterfly.

When she was about 12, it turned out she could catch butterflies well. That, in her all-girls convent, made her a temporary icon.

While the rest of the girls could admire butterflies from a distance, she was the only one that could stealthily creep up on a rhodendron bush and grab the butterfly by his silver-scaly wings. To the other girls, she seemed like a professional, like the tiger they watched on Discovery Channel, crouching to leap.

It seemed to come naturally to her. Of course she had a natural female aversion to creepy crawlies, but butterflies were different. She'd hold them by their wings, notice their sudden surprise, feel the throbbing body between her forefinger and thumb and then let them go. Then she'd look at the silver dust on her thumb and rub it against her cheek before washing her hands.

Sometimes, to amuse herself, she would pick up the butterflies, run up and wave it in front of the faces of the girls standing a mile away. And watch with a laugh as they went scattering away, screaming. She enjoyed it yes. And she thought the butterflies enjoyed it too.

She would also hunt for pupas on the bushes, young caterpillars getting ready for adulthood.That involved much patience and much turning up of leaves.

And then, one day, she found a pupa, under a leaf. Golden from the caterpillar's fresh secretion, shining as the sun's rays hit it at a slant. She found an old matchbox in the janitor's room and put the pupa in it. That evening, in school, she was so excited, the nuns were forced to punish her. She held the matchbox cocooned in her sweaty palms, outside the class, with a grin on her face.

At home, she found an old shoe box, filled it with leaves from the neighbour's badam tree and placed the pupa gently on the green bed. For good measure, she threw some leaves on top of it, punched some holes on the lid of the box and put it on her side of the shelf she shared with her sister.

Every morning she would open the box, look inside, just to see if the caterpillar had become the beautiful butterfly it was meant to be. She wondered if the worm would have to eat to do so and just in case it had to, she saved some apple peel and put it inside the box.

After some time, she forgot about the box. Until a faint smell began to leak out from her side of the shelf and her sister complained.

She opened the lid eagerly, it was time for a butterfly, anyway. Turning up the mess of the leaves inside the box, she saw the cocoon, split open, a red-black-yellow butterfly, its wings broken lying on his side on the leaves, legs sticking out awkward, stiff with death.

She never caught a single butterfly again.

I guess you could say she had 'turned a new leaf.' :)