Once, there was a moth who was all brown and black.
"Black is pretty nice a color to live with, but brown is just a disaster," thought the moth to itself.
So the moth started to imagine it had a little of some other colour on itself.
First, it was fire engine red wings.
Then, a month later, it added sunshine yellow tear-drops.
When the moth was burnt by a lamp, it started to picture lime green spots in the yellow tear drops on its red wings, to take away its pain.
One day, the moth thought to itself,
"Why, I'm a colorful butterfly! Never mind that the colors clash ... I think it adds a whimsical touch."Slowly, the moth learnt to escape into its land of imagination where no brown existed and it was a beautiful butterfly.
Everytime the moth saw its reflection in the mirror, it told itself,
"I'm a princess among the moths--I am a butterfly."One day, a fren that the butterfly-moth loved dearly came by and said,
"You know, you really are a bit of a butterfly. Your feet are not on the ground sometimes.It's like when we are drawn to an open flame. At some point, we start to know it will burn us.We need to change direction sometime so we can not head towards death.But some of us just want to keep heading towards it anyway, hoping that maybe this once it will not burn.And they end up losing a leg or a wing or even their lives."The moth that thought it was a butterfly replied,
"Maybe you're right. Tell me when I'm flying too close to an open flame okei? Then again, you've got your feet on the ground so much you're growing roots! Come fly with me sometime."The fren answered,
"Maybe I will sometime. But I might not tell you anymore, because who knows? One day you might just be able to live with an open flame. And who am I to tell you you can't?"The butterfly-moth laughed and said,
"Yeh, you never know!"One day, the butterfly-moth was flying past a window when it saw a bright blue flame.
Its glow was intoxicating and the butterfly-moth flew zig-zaggedly towards it.
Inches away from reaching the flame, there was a "thunk" and the butterfly-moth came to an involuntary halt.
It was unable to go any further, but as far as the butterfly-moth could tell, it was touching the flame.
"Hey, I have found a flame that does not burn me! I must go and tell my fren and bring him here to see."As the butterfly-moth flew off, there was another "thunk" and it hit its head against what looked like another flame.
Confused, it took off again, only to hit itself against another flame!
"What's going on?" it said out loud,
"Maybe if I call my fren, he'll hear me and come help."So the butterfly-moth shouted as loud as it could, and flapped its wings against the many flames that it seemed to be surrounded with.
After some time, it realized that its fren would not be coming.
Tired out, it fluttered to the ground and laid there looking up.
That's when it noticed that it was surrounded by many black and brown moths.
They looked exactly like our butterfly-moth, and mimicked its every movement.
"Argh...brown! How hideous! I wish they would go away," it said.
The butterfly-moth turned away to avoid looking at the ugly brown, but found another black and brown moth there staring back at it.
She turned to another side and found the same thing.
Then, with a sudden shock, it realised that all the black and brown moths were actually reflections of its self!
The butterfly-moth had been trapped in a cube of mirrors with one single flame inside.
"No! I don't like you at all ... I have red wings with lime-green spotted yellow tear drops ... I am a princess among the moths--I am a butterfly!"The butterfly-moth yelled and yelled to all its reflections.
Naturally, none of them ever responded to it.
Confronted by itself on every side, the moth flew frantically from wall to wall.
The flame was no longer as important now, as the moth was desperate simply to get out.
It could not stand the sight of itself, and for once, no matter how hard it tried to imagine itself as a colorful butterfly, it did not work.
Left to its own, and tired out, the moth laid back down on the floor of the cube, and eventually accepted the truth--that it was not a butterfly or a princess among the moths; it was nothing more than a black and brown moth.
Disappointment flooded its eyes with tears, and disgust filled its heart.
"I believed a lie about myself. I am nothing more than a moth," it said,
"and a foolish one. Who was I to think I could create?"Just then, the Painter who had been watching from outside the cube reached in with His paintbrush and carefully brushed a stroke of fire-engine red on the moth's left wing.
"Huh ... What was that?" the moth exclaimed.
Silently, the Painter reached in again and swept the wing with another dust of red.
Very slowly, stroke by stroke, the Painter began to cover the moth's wings with fire-engine red.
Then He carefully drew and colored the tear drops in sunshine yellow.
It was a long and tedious process.
The moth would squirm and try to avoid the paintbrush as it tickled and hurt sometimes.
But soon, it learnt that the quieter it sat, the faster it went.
So it waited. And tried not to keep flying around, looking for an exit.
Finally, the Painter picked out his finest paintbrush and dipped it into lime-green of the most perfect shade.
But instead of drawing boring spots, He started to draw intricate designs on both wings.
By the time He was done, the moth no longer resembled the black and brown moth it had been.
Instead, as it flitted around the cube, it was speechless to see that it was even more beautiful than it had imagined itself.
"Thank you," whispered the moth,
"You've made me into a butterfly."Then, the Painter opened up the cube and let the butterfly out.
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