By Adelene Mobarak and Jason Mobarak
(The following is a bedtime story constructed with ideas from my daughter, I filled in all the details.)
He couldn’t fly very well, and he really liked bright lights. He loved to fly around bright lights at night. You see, his friends didn’t like the bright light as much as Moffy. They preferred sitting and appreciating the lights before they fell asleep, they liked to sit on some flowers. Moffy on the other hand, really, really loved the lights. He would flutter and fly around the light in big circles, and sometimes crash into the light. And oh! did he love doing this!
One day, Moffy was out in a garden with his friends, with tall grass and pretty flowers all around. Moffy saw flowers colored in yellows, blues and reds... so many pretty flowers... HEY MOFFY LOOK OUT!! BAM!! OH NO!! Moffy flew into a big, big rock! He bonked his head! And boy did it hurt. He said, “That smarts, I might have to cry, but I’m not gonna” … so the little butterfly held it in, and he did his best to not cry. But as hard as he tried he couldn’t hold it in.
Tears started gushing from his eyes. Some other butterflies that Moffy didn’t know, came over to where he was and asked him, “Are you ok little fella?”. Moffy replied, “Yes, ::snif:: ::snif::, I’m OK, I just bumped my head”.
“Well, maybe you should go to the butterfly hospital! A bump to the head can be serious for a butterfly! You could be very sick!”
The other butterflies rushed off before Moffy could protest! He didn’t think he needed to go to the hospital, he’d bumped his head quite often, running into lights during the night, and it never bothered him, this time it felt worse than bumping into a light, but it didn’t feel that bad.
Then, off in the distance Moffy heard sirens as the butterflambulance approached. Moffy was sitting in a patch of grass, next to the rock that he bumped his head on. He could see the ambulance’s white exterior, bright against the green grass. The butterflambulance was a strange creature, with butterfly wings, but about twice long as normal. Where the body of the butterfly would have been, there was a big white box! Was it a big giant butterfly?! Moffy squinted... NO! There were people inside of it!
On all sides, there were square holes for butterflies to look out of them. And indeed, he could see inside there were two butterflies, with their wings colored in white, blue and red patches. One of the butterflies looked as if he was controlling the big butterflambulance! He was driving!
Moffy was amazed that the butterflambulance was a giant flying machine that they used to carry sick butterflies to the hospital. Moffy had never seen such a contraption, to his eyes this ambulance was a wondrous sight, and for a moment, he even forgot that his head was hurt. When the ambulance finally arrived he struggled to remember why they were there, he was too interested in the amazing flying ambulance.
He stuttered when they asked him, “Hello little Sir! How can we help you? What seems to be the problem?”
“I... I... I bumped my head, and the other butterflies insisted that I go to the hospital! But really, I do feel OK now, I don’t think I need to go to the hospital!” said Moffy.
“Sir, you should go to the hospital right away, a head bump might not feel like much, but it can get serious very quickly, let’s go, right now!” said the butterfly EMT.
“Well... well... OK”
They loaded him in to the butterflambulance. Off they went, out of the garden, up and over a big wall, a wall that Moffy could never get over himself! Moffy saw many wonderous things out the windows of the blutterflambulance. He saw rivers of hard black goo, supremely massive fields of grass, made into neat squares and separated by big flat rocks made so smooth that they looked like the skin of a grey beast.
After what seem like a long, long drive, they arrived at the hospital, outside it read:
Lepidoptera General Hospital
124 West Eocene Lane
Monarch City, Papilionoidea Prefecture
...he didn’t have much time to read though, as soon as they got there, they rushed him out of the ambulance and into the hospital!
“We’ve got a head injury, we need to get him into the butterflexray STAT!”
Moffy thought: “The butterflexray!? What is that? Am I OK?”
A special butterfly, colored in white and teal (and wearing some strange, orange, squishy plastic shoes) came over and said: “Don’t worry son, we’ll take care of you. We’re just going to use a machine to see if you hurt your head”. The special butterfly was called a “doctor”.They rushed off to a room, in it was the butterflexray machine. The machine made big whirring and clicking sounds: BRRRRUMMMMM CLICK CLANK CLACK... but a butterfly nurse was there to make sure he wasn’t scared.
Later, Moffy lay on a bed and the doctor came over: “Well, son, it looks like you’re OK, in fact, you’re not hurt at all... but I’m afraid I have some, erm, what may be, startling news: it says here that you’re a butterfly, but the butterflexray shows that you are not a butterfly, but rather: A MOTH!”
The doctor continued: “You see, Moffy, hitting your head can be very serious for a butterfly, because we don’t do that very often, but for moths, it happens quite often and it’s not a big deal.”
Moffy was glad he was ok, but he thought out loud: “How could I be a moth? The moment I woke up in the garden the first time, I’ve lived with all my buttferfly friends, I thought I was one of them!”
“Well, don’t worry son, it seems you just hatched early, in not too long your friends and family will hatch and you’ll find that there will be plenty more moths to play with!”
But Moffy thought: “I don’t want to wait for the other moths, I like my butterfly friends, I want to play with them!!”
So, off they went, away from the hospital and back to the garden where Moffy lived... little did Moffy know a surprise was waiting for him when he got back to the garden: all his butterfly friends were there waiting to greet him!
“WELCOME BACK MOFFY WE MISSED YOU!” a sign read. They all yelled, “Moffy, are you OK?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m glad you’re all here. They told something disturbing though...”
“What was it Moffy?”
“They said I’m not a butterfly, I’m a moth!!”
“Well, we all suspected that Moffy, those were strangers that sent you to the hospital. We didn’t tell you about being a moth because we didn’t want you to feel different. You see, moths and butterflies do a lot of the same things. We eat nectar, we like to sit on flowers, we love gardens, and we both fly around to get from place to place. You just like to stay up a lot later than us, and you’re very, very fond of bright lights at night. That’s what made us suspect you were moth.”
“You see, we don’t usually have many moths to play with, but we found that we were so alike there wasn’t any reason to treat you differently.”
Moffy was very happy to learn this: he loved his butterfly friends, and he loved his garden, but perhaps most all, he loved knowing that he was a moth, and not a funny looking butterfly. He also looked forward to what the doctor said: soon he and the butterflies would have lots of other moths to play with!
Moffy liked one last thing too: when the other moths hatched, he would finally have someone to fly around bright lights with at night! Yay!
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