Your Mission, Brimstone (should you choose to accept it), is to leap into the void suspended only by silken strand, aiming for that scrotty Poinsettia on the table down there (obviously decided to make this one last two Christmases…).
Now – you`ve fulfilled the first part of your caterpillar duties admirably – your eating-and-eating has been unsurpassable and now it`s time to glue your enormous self to a branch and pupate for a while. You`ll be fine – just pretend to be a leaf.
I have to tell you though, Brimstone, that when you emerge you might see some changes... perhaps most noticeably, Wings – this is perfectly normal. And you must use these to Take Off and find yourself a mate, because binge Eating, Brimstone, is no longer your duty; as a butterfly your duty is to Multiply.
Well, my work is done now, and I will self-destruct in thirty seconds. Turn away, lad – it won`t be pretty.
I Accept my mission, Captain, and I`m ready to do my best. Oh Yuck! He wasn`t joking… Oh well:
Wheeeeee! Out of the way - Here I co-! Oh sod it…
And so it was that a couple of weeks ago a green and wiggly thing abseiled past my ear, missed the poinsettia and stopped half way past.
A moment`s ponder, then it started gently swinging till it manoeuvred itself onto one of the leaves. Then looped its way over the edge and disappeared.
Next day after in-depth Googling, I recognised a Strange New Leaf stuck to the stem. `Twas surely a Brimstone Butterfly Pupa! (Don`t like to think he`s a Moth – we have curtains we care about…)
The thing is, How did he get to the ceiling, and right above our poinsettia, thereby avoiding myriad deathly kitchen landings: the white-hot-plates of the cooker, the bottomless evil waters of the sink and oh lord! the disgusting piles of fester in the cat bowl…
One could postulate that, nibbling contentedly on nearby clematis, he was carried away by a moonlight shadow and whisked through the window to the ceiling on a fierce updraught.
He`d made it by whatever magic, and I monitored his progress (of staying stuck to stem) for Two Weeks. Between two and four weeks I knew he`d Burst Forth, so with careful surveillance I would see him briefly in full flutter then urge him outside to fulfil his destiny.
Nooooooh! He`s Gone. This morning he wasn`t stuck to his stem; nor was he in the pot, on the table or in the cat fester. ( And SpartaCat no longer has the oomph to catch a Brimstone with or without wings).
I never imagined I`d be So Devastated by his disappearance. Is he coping; how are his wings; will we ever see him again…?
