The butterfly’s first mistake was visiting my balcony. His wings were the colour of optimism, and he’d popped by after spotting the greenery growing in my plant pots. He would flutter and land, flutter and land, acknowledging each plant with a quick perch like a celebrity doing a meet and greet with all their most faithful fans.
Watching the butterfly a moment longer, I realised the meet and greet was a ruse. This was a treasure hunt. In a chirpy tone, I heard the butterfly ask the same question to each plant, ‘Are you flower? Are you flower?’. My reaction was one of a host entertaining friends and realising that the cupboards were bankrupt of tea and biscuits.
I searched the living room for redemption. No luck. While plant-rich, especially after the lockdown plant-purchasing madness that gripped me and half of London, no member of my new plant family had a flower to share with my new fluttering friend.
I felt terrible. There I was tucking into breakfast with nothing to offer the weary traveller who had come to my balcony for a snack. True to his optimistic branding, the butterfly searched every plant before moving on.
He tried to leave the same way he came in, over the balcony railing. There he met the other visitor who had moved in during the spring of that year. At the end of the row of plant pots is the yucca tree I inherited from a friend. Looking like a miniature palm tree, my friend aptly bestowed the name Spike to the yucca.
With such long and pointy leaves, it was inevitable that a spider would set up her webs between the gaps.
Seeing the butterfly flutter up to the height of Spike, my heart went out to him. Things were about to go one of two ways as he started to weave between the leaves and ask, ‘Are you flower? Are you flower?’. He would either find a snack or become a snack, and all I could do was wait and see whether this slow-motion punch would catch my fluttery friend.
Stay curious,
Jamie | @JamoeMills
