Butterfly Notes Novels & Stories

"They are our legacy. The future we fought so hard to protect. They are the reason we kept going, even when it seemed impossible." Lyra ran up to them, her face flushed with excitement. Her honey-brown eyes were wide with wonder, and she held her cupped hands out in front of her. "Mama! Papa! I caught a butterfly!" Kai smiled and knelt beside her, peering into her small hands. A delicate butterfly rested on her palm, its wings a brilliant shade of blue that shimmered in the sunlight. Lyra looked at it with wonder, her small face filled with awe and joy.

I crouched beside her, trying to join in her wonder. "And the butterfly? What's it called, Aunt Mary?" she asked again. Before I could answer, a voice from beside us responded, "That's a monarch butterfly. Beautiful, isn't it?" I looked up to see a woman standing beside us. It was Julia.

"But don't worry, since your life is presently in my hands, we aren't lost yet." Arian scoffed and jumped over too and they continued walking. "O.M.G!" Natalia suddenly squeaked. "It's a white butterfly!" She excitedly moved over to where it was feeding on a flower. "Yay." The hot French muttered dryly. Arian didn't know, but in Astheria white butterflies were the rarest and most significant butterflies in the Empire. "Take a picture of us!" She ordered and tossed him her digital camera. He reluctantly took a photo and returned it after much fussing.

“Hey, look!” Clayton excitedly pointed at the copper and small butterfly which was flapping inside the plastic bag. Marcus had put it on the floor. The butterfly was flapping but the time ran backward to that creature…it slowly changed and it returned to become a cocoon. Marcus was surprised and looked at Clayton. “It reversed within time dimensions and returned back to its cocooning state…” He paused and curled his nose as he was thinking hard. “It can be assumed that a butterfly has a lifespan for forty eight hours normally …” He rubbed his chin and made a frowning lips as he thought.

It flutters all around me, and I swear I can hear my mothers’ sweet, angelic voice singing… “I promise you there will come a day Butterfly fly away…” I haven’t touched my guitar or sang for quite a few years. I just can’t seem to bring myself to do it. The little yellow butterfly flutters to my right, my eyes follow it. It settles down on a dandelion. I haven’t seen a dandelion in such a long time, yet, to my right there seems to almost a be a field of them. How have I never noticed this before?

It was a butterfly. I blinked twice in amusement and slowly reached out, only for it to fly over a potted hydrangea in the corner. I contented myself with watching from afar. It flapped its majestic wings elegantly— black etched with purple dots and an intricate pattern on the sides. Somewhere on the internet, someone pointed out that butterflies cannot actually see their wings. I wonder if it was actually true and what a shame that would be. To be so beautiful and yet so painfully unaware.

She just… exists. Eva paused, crouched to inspect a butterfly that had landed nearby. The movement was so subtle, so precise, that it reminded Evelyn of the way a metronome ticked steadily in the background of a piano lesson. She touched the edge of her tablet, checking the timer she had set for Eva’s morning practice: fifteen minutes of gentle stretching, ten minutes of observation, and five minutes for notes. The butterfly flitted upward, and Eva rose gracefully, brushing her fingers together as if she were dusting off the world.

“What’s that?” I blink and then look down into my hands where a little blue butterfly sits, slowly moving her wings up and down, completely calm and incredibly pretty. “Holy shit,” Blythe whispers, stepping close to peer at it. “Where did you get that?” “Want to be a butterfly next?” I ask, a bit wicked, grinning up at him. He just flinches back, looking at me with horror.

It was the most thoughtful thing I'd ever received in my life. The eight-inch-long piece artfully depicted a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis in five stages. On the chrysalis' shell, she'd drawn elements from my past, while on the butterfly's wings she'd concretized my dreams. Not going to lie, it took everything in me not to start bawling after I'd realized how much attention she paid to my stories, to my secrets.

Chloe announced to her assembled classmates, "we are going to learn about the life cycle of the painted lady butterfly. Anya, please distribute the coloring sheets." Anya handed out the pages with the efficiency of a seasoned assistant. "I colored mine already. I used purple." "Butterflies aren't purple," one of the boys protested. "Some butterflies are purple," Chloe said firmly. "The purple emperor butterfly is native to Europe and parts of Asia. It's very rare." "How do you know that?" "I read books. You should try it sometime."