FLIGHT BY BUTTERFLY

FLIGHT BY BUTTERFLY

(Being Part 2 of the story “Fruit lit by a Moon”)

It was first thing in the next morning and Joanne and Wendy were lying in bed as close together as any two people can get.

“You wouldn’t believe it, darling,” grinned Joanne to Wendy, her partner in in just about every possible way. To start with, they were business partners in that they ran a market stall website together and to finish with they were lovers planning to get married as soon as a myriad of other things allowed.

“What wouldn’t I believe, sweetheart?” asked Wendy between little kisses to her lover’s neck. Joanne particularly liked that and Wendy herself felt huge pleasure in satisfying the one woman who was obviously meant for her.

“This bloke who barged into me, I mean, he really did barge into me, quite deliberately. Then after I’d made him understand there could be nothing doing because I was gay and already had a passionate lover he rambled along about being an alien… If you think about it, have you ever met an alien, my love?”

Wendy climbed out of bed and pulled her nightdress off ready to dress for the day. “Would I be able to tell?” she asked, frowning, as she climbed into her underwear. “You said that he was this bloke, meaning you took him for a man you assumed was after a bit of the other with a pretty girl rather than anything like an alien. That’s you, Joanne, the pretty girl I mean... and until he told you about being an alien you couldn’t tell, so how would I know if I passed him on the street, say on my way to post something off like I do most days?”

Joanne frowned as she dressed in her day clothes and pulled her hair into a tidy pony tail.

“Well,” she said, “he described what he claimed was his home planet. He said it was at the opposite end of the milky way, that makes it one hell of a long way away, loads of light years, enough to make your mind boggle, and he wanted to nip me to there just like that, as if it was less a problem than catching a bus into town so that he could use me as Eve, with him as Adam, on this alien but unpronounable world of his, and I would have babies for him and eat apples or pears or something deliciously fruity while he planted his seed in me. I mean, in me! Anyway I told him no doing because I really was gay and didn’t do anything like that with men, not even if they are aliens!”

“At least precious, that’s the end of what must have been a scary encounter.”

“I hope it is, but in all the rabbiting I might have, you know what it’s like when you’ve had a drink or three ata sixties night and you feel all warm hearted…”

“You might have what, sweetheart?”

“I might have invited him for tea. He claimed to know everything about me, something to do with a special algorithm, whatever that might be, so he claimed to know where I lived and I might have said, you know, tea today!”

“And did he say he’d come?” frowned a confused Wendy.

“I’m not sure. I wasn’t paying attention properly. You know how I can go all dithery after I’ve had a good night out. And Jerry and the Pacemakers were going through my mind, and the Rolling Stones with a chorus by the Beatles… I might not be ancient but I do like music from back then.”

“I know you do, which is why I didn’t go,” frowned Wendy, then she smiled, “though I would have done if I’d known you were being chatted up by a bloke from the stars!”

“And he wanted more than to just chat me up!”

“So you said. He wanted to whisk you off more miles than my brain can imagine, do his dirty deed with you and then bring you back before I noticed you were missing!”

“All of which is plainly impossible,” sighed Joanne. “Do you think he was some kind of con man? After my virginity on a dark and lonely night?”

Wendy frowned again. “If he was a confidence trickster he wasn’t a very good one, was he? I mean, even inviting himself to tea, saying he knew your address and he probably wouldn’t be late…”

“I don’t think he said that, my love. I mean, about not being late…” sighed Joanne.

It was at that moment that the doorbell chose to ring, or rather, someone chose to ring it at that moment.

“Could that be your alien?” asked Wendy, and Joanne could tell there was somethig uncertain about the way she issued the words your alien.

“I’ll go and see,” said Joanne, “and if it is you’ll be with me if he waves a magic wand snd performs an alien spell on me, won’t you?”

“I’m coming down the stairs with you,” proposed a worried Wendy, “because what you said about your alien sounded sort of worrysome to me.”

“Don’t be worried darling. If he was going to impregnate me he would have done it there and then without so much as a by your leave,” Joanne tried to reassure her lover.

“Let’s find out,” insisted Wendy, “come on!”

They charged down the stairs and Joanne flung the door open. And as she did so a butterfly’s wing wafted a cool and fragrant wind to them, like nothing they’d ever experienced before, and they were standing on a different street in a different town without even an instant of time having passed by. And with them as if nothing extraordinary had happened was a smiling Ernest.

“What… what was that?” asked Wendy, not so much afraid as confused.

“I thought you might like to see my home,” he smiled at them, “though I was only expecting one of you. So you must be Wendy?” he asked, and the he waved his hands, indicating the general view, not unlike a street scene in Brumpton but for the three huge moons hanging above them in a sky that might have been blue or might have been pink. They couldn’t tell. And more than one moon in the sky was plainly absurd.

“How…?” asked Joanne.

Ernest smiled at her. “Welcome to my world,” he said, “and if anyone tries to tell you that you can’t reach somewhere like this in the blinking of an eye tell them that you can and that you’ve done it! And suggest that unless they know every single thing under the skies of a thousand worlds then they’ve no right to suspect your journey here as anything but the accurate truth, just a little something they haven’t got round to thinking about.”

“Our journey?” stammered Wendy.

“By butterfly,” he smiled, “our people, those you might see wandering about, shopping or going to work or just moonbathing, discovered the butterfly as a very special way of getting from, as you would say, A to B very quickly.”

“H-how?” stammered Joanne.

“Oh, that’s easy,” he grinned, “you think of a place before it flaps its wings even once and by the time it flaps them a second time you’re there! So welcome to my world, dear ladies, and, because I like you, I’ll get you back to your own world faster than lightning and whenever you want to go!”

“I don’t believe it,” whispered Wendy.

Ernest smiled again. “It’s very wise not to believe everything you’re told. Your newspapers on Earth taught me that! But you can believe me when I tell you all about flight by butterfly, can’t you see?”

Just then an elderly man, the sort who might have propped up any bar in any pub on Earth, passed by on sparking roller skates, and they knew they were somewhere very different from home.

© Peter Rogerson 11.04.23

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Reviews

[AYVID N]

This story reminded me of a very interesting novel I had read eons ago called 'Yargo' by Jacqueline Susann. It was about another world too and how the protagonist falls for a man on that world. I loved this story and especially the message that anything is possible across this big, wide universe housing a million and more galaxies and a billion and more planets on them. Just because we cannot understand and measure all that's out there doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Thanks once again for sharing your stories. They're like deliciously sinful cookies and I can't help reaching for the jar again and again. :)