What makes two people decide to go on an amazing adventure?
What happened in the there and then that changed the here and now?
The past shapes your future, only you probably didnt know it then. You probably dont really know it now. But it does. It makes, breaks and shapes the person you are to be.
If any experience we had, would have been different, perhaps we wouldnt be in this particular here and now. But all paths have led to here. And here we stand. We stand as characters in our own stories.
Let me tell you something about my there and then. Knowing this will help me to answer the questions that I will ask myself along the way.
All adventure stories start with a beginning.
But amazing adventure stories start with a prequel.
A window opening.
A door into the story.
The weaving of how many story threads are all sewn into one.
This is my thread.
This is my part of the story.
The Story of the Butterfly:
Now, before I start this story, I must warn you. This part of the story is primarily about adventure, but it is also about madness. Its about patience, its about love. Its about the sheer determination that moves people to risk it all. But most of all, this is a story about the search for happiness.
But with all stories, there must be a beginning. A beginning which started in the dark. A darkness that overwhelms, a darkness that seems impenetrable... or so it first seems.
Long ago, there was a little Butterfly.
The Butterfly had long brown wavy hair that her dad used to love to brush. She would run and laugh and play, and so she should, because she was little, and that's what you do when you are little. You create your own happiness. At five years old, she didnt have a care in the world, and why should she, she was a child. She would play on the swing in her garden and only stop when her sister came and helped her create more mischief that they could often manage.
The little Butterfly had many dreams that would take her far, far away. She would dream of a rescue, as all children do, and how she would play a part in this amazing adventure.
She would paint and create and laugh and play. That was all that she needed. Her smile dimpled her soft cheek shone like the sun when she laughed, which was often. All was well, and so it should be, for she was little, and little people tend to believe that all is well.
Now, as her young life passed from one month to the next, she grew. Not very tall mind you, but she grew. Her mind continued to expand as she read books that took her imagination farer and wider than before. Her mum would cradle her in her arms as she spoke of her vivid imagination after listening to her wide-eyed thoughts. Her ever active imagination created even more dreams of her future. She dreamt of being so many things.
She wanted to be an artist. Her Granny was an artist and would paint because it made her happy. When both her sister and she would stay over, they would paint until it filled their little hearts.
She wanted to be a photographer. She loved the day when her Dad let her borrow the family camera to go on a school trip. It was a special moment when she took the flash cube and twisted it after taking her first of many photos that day.
She wanted to be a writer. She woudl put her hands on her little dimpled cheeks whilst her classmates would read their own creations to the silent watchful class. Her only sorrow was that her handwriting was not very good and she didnt have the words to put on the page. But her thoughts continued to grow and would stay until she had the words to bring them to life.
She wanted to be an adventurer. Trying to find a way into other world by searching in her Mum's wardrobe would often be more than her Mum could take, but her imagination would not be sated.She would make wigwams out of runner bean canes and blankets from the line. She would sit and create a camp fire with a small yellow seaside bucket attached by string to a branch of the apple tree. She would stir the mixture of grass, water and pink apple blossoms hoping to make a meal to satisfy her and her sister on this wild adventure to the end of the garden.
She wanted to do many things, but time got involved, as it always does, and as the years passed, the little Butterfly grew and her dreams started to fade. Not suddenly, you understand, but gradually. She began to forget. The vivid imagination drifted into an adult world and the laughter was stifled by other thoughts. She put away her memories of when she was little and built a life for herself, or rather, time built one around her.
Her dreams, however, played on, hoping one day that they would be rediscovered and the laughter and excitement would return. Every morning, her dreams would dance in her memory trying to reignite the fire that had once burned so brightly. They would whisper of their secrets, but everytime she tried to remember, her dreams would float away like bubbles in the air until they were out of reach.
The numbness of life injected other thoughts and ideas and led her to a life she now thought she wanted. She continued to be teased by dreams which by now had no meaning, and she thought the thought that all think with time. If she could not remember her dreams, then she would hide them. And so she did, for she was an adult, and adults tend to do these things.
And in time, after being continually taunted by a myriad of dreams, and after experiencing moments which were filled with pain and sadness, she took her fragile Butterfly with dreams that could no longer be remembered and she enclosed it around a shell which would not be broken. The Coconut shell did it's job well. Nothing could get in, but worse still, the Butterfly could not get out.
Now what happens to a person who no longer has dreams? Their life becomes a delicious torment of Promethean pain. They appear to be living, but they are no longer fully alive.
Life continued and all appeared to be in order. Now, on one particular uneventful day, she had a strange feeling that she had lost something. She didnt know what it was, but the feeling would not leave her.She looked around her and searched for the missing item. Time continued but the feeling wouldnt leave her. Time passed on further still and her search became more fervent. She asked questions that remained unanswered. She searched in books, hoping that one of them would trigger something that would solve her mystery. Little did she know, that the answer was just around the corner. Little did she know that the Butterfly, whose dreams had long been forgotten was starting to stir. The adventure was being planned in the darkness of the enclosed shell. She did not know of this, but this was the start. She was waiting for an answer, and the answer had already come. It came in the shape of a Goldfish...
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