Once upon a time, a long, very long time ago indeed, there was a young woman as white as snow who had seven good, but not very tall, friends. I would love to write their story, but unfortunately someone beat me to it—just like with the story of the ugly duckling, my second choice—so ours has to be slightly different. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it is about a gray moth and not seven but eight little caterpillars—also not very tall, it goes without saying.

But before I continue, I should add a disclaimer: since this all happened a long, very long time ago indeed, I might not get all the details straight, so I hope you won’t mind too much—after all, memory can be a tad flaky when you get to a certain age.

And now, without further ado, let’s keep going…

The gray moth and the eight small caterpillars lived in a cloudy country where, for some strange reason, the clouds often insisted on having no silver lining at all.

In that country of dark clouds, it rained quite a bit—obviously. Because of the rain, the country had beautiful mountains and forests, but one could say that the moth and the caterpillars had a rather “down-to-earth” personality, and so they focused all their attention on their path in front of them—and, of course, on avoiding being stepped on.

Because of this, they felt quite kaput. They had a hard time appreciating the beauty of their rainy country: it was hard enough for them to keep their heads above the water, mind you, though this is the wrong metaphor—also obviously.

Now, let me introduce them:

Ariaseli, Flower, Martini, Pierre, Katarka, Evvvi, Claudina and the youngest of all, Emmmmi. By the way, the moth’s name was, as you well guessed, Gray.

Ariaseli was a clever little caterpillar. Its tiny brain was like a supercomputer. It thought all sorts of things, had great ideas, and never stopped, not for a second. Having a caterpillar’s brain, of course, it didn’t even know it could stop and smell the flowers. Anyway, flowers were very tall and difficult to reach, so Ariaseli almost never took the time to try and climb one of them.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the rainy country full of clouds without much of a silver lining also had lots of flowers, all kinds of flowers, of all sorts of shapes, colors, and smells, but Ariaseli thought those were only meant for bees and other insects, not for itself.

Speaking of flowers, Flower was a caterpillar that had seen the worst the country had to offer. It had seen animals trampling on other animals without any regard for them. It had seen very selfish beasts bullying innocent, smaller creatures. It had tasted hell on earth.

To protect itself, it had developed a shell worthy of a giant Galápagos tortoise and had tried to run away and forget. Unfortunately, caterpillars cannot really develop a shell, or at least not a very thick one, as you know, and also they don’t run very quickly, so the trick didn’t work for long. Soon, it felt crushed by the weight of its own nightmares—and that of the inadequate shell—, its body crumbling to pieces ahead of time.

What to say about Martini? Well, the very first thing you could think of Martini is that it had to be a pretty heavy drinker, right? You could also conclude from the name that it would have a typical Italian personality—you know, open, loud, extroverted… but you’d be absolutely wrong.

For once, nobody in that rainy country of dark clouds was Italian, as Italy is a totally different country, some of it very sunny, by the way. Martini also wasn’t a heavy drinker, if at all.

It was, rather, a very creative little caterpillar. It sort of enjoyed painting, sculpting, and all sorts of manual activities.

Since caterpillars have many hands, Martini did many things, and, truth be told, very beautiful things, but it had forgotten how to really enjoy doing them. It was probably too busy doing them to actually enjoy them. Maybe this is because it didn’t feel it deserved to enjoy its own creations. To be clear, everyone else did enjoy Martini’s creations—just not Martini itself.

You might say Pierre was French. Who could blame you for that, with that name? But you’d be wrong again. Pierre, despite its name—and its French hat—was born and raised in that very rainy country of dark clouds, and rarely dared to climb up and smell any flower. It just didn’t have the time for that.

Pierre had learned early on to be a nice caterpillar who would do anything and everything for other caterpillars. It would clear the path for them so they could walk, or rather crawl, without stumbling, even when everyone knows caterpillars can’t stumble because they have so many feet. Well, lo and behold, Pierre did stumble and it hit its nose—or is it snout?—against the ground.

You would think that, since caterpillars are close to the ground, Pierre didn’t get hurt, but you’d be wrong a third time—it got hurt, very badly hurt indeed.

Because it had been too busy clearing the path for others so they could crawl easily, it had forgotten to pay attention to its own path, and so it paid the price with a sore nose—or is it snout?.

Katarka was a very smiley little caterpillar. You could say a happy little caterpillar. Its personality was so sunny that one could say Katarka didn’t fit in this rainy country of dark clouds without silver lining at all. It had smiles for everyone, and a very contagious one, by the way.

Like Flower, Ariaseli, Pierre and the others, Katarka always made sure everyone who crossed its path walked away with a brand new big, round, shiny smile. It made it happy, or so it thought, for eventually it ran out of smiles. Especially because it had given away some of its own smiles.

It had forgotten that one must make time to water one’s internal smile tree—or else…

Oooops!

A huge oops, if you ask me, as it found out when its nose—or is it snout?—ended up, like Pierre’s, pretty bloodied.

Evvvi felt very old. It had been taking care of older caterpillars who couldn’t fend for themselves for a very long time and eventually the older caterpillars’ aches and pains had rubbed off onto Evvvi.

Plus, because old caterpillars don’t have much of a brain, their little minds are easily lost. Since young caterpillars also have a small brain, their minds can sometimes get lost as well.

Evvvi felt all the weight of the world on its shoulders. Given that caterpillars have many arms, they do have tons of shoulders as well so, no pun intended, Evvvi just carried tons of weight for its own good, and no matter how carefully Pierre had smoothed its path, Evvvi collapsed when a dry leaf fell on its back on a windy autumn day.

After all, caterpillars are delicate creatures, and if they’re not careful to take good care of themselves, they can easily collapse no matter how many legs they might have.

Claudina was a playful little caterpillar. Like its friend Katarka, Claudina liked seeing others smile and was always finding something funny to say. It was “the life of the party,” always had clever and sometimes mischievous ideas, and everyone enjoyed its wit.

You could always count on Claudina to make everyone laugh so hard that their shoulders—all of their many shoulders—would shake uncontrollably. When they were together, you might think they were all doing some kind of shoulder exercises following the instructions of their, in its opinion, cruel and unusual physiotherapist.

Luckily for others, yes, but unluckily for Claudina, who used this gift as a coping mechanism and ended up losing direction despite the well-cleared path Pierre had prepared for everyone. While giving away so much laughter, Claudina forgot to recharge the tiny little batteries in its head, which eventually started to run on empty.

When you disconnect your own battery, your body and your mind will end up calling it quits on you.

When Claudina realized it, it was too late and it had forgotten to laugh at the rhythm of the music the forest plays.

Emmmmi was the youngest of the caterpillars. Its name had many m’s because that way, with so many legs, it looked like a real caterpillar when spelled out. I don’t know how Emmmmi came up with this idea, since caterpillars don’t usually write much of anything, but who am I to judge.

Anyway, Emmmmi was a quiet caterpillar who had discovered something that very few other caterpillars had found: that silence talks.

Yes, for Emmmmi had a very keen ear and could hear the sound of everything. It often just stood there, noticing the wind playing with the leaves, listening to Katarka’s smile, hearing Evvvi’s inner thoughts, or picking up the faint cry of Flower’s painful memories…

Emmmmi didn’t want to make any noise and was afraid of ruffling any feathers—though no caterpillar wears feathers, they’re out of fashion nowadays.

Usually, it just found a quiet corner and observed the world pass by, but that was exactly the problem: being so good at hearing the silence, it ended up doing too much listening and forgetting to make its own noise and dance to its own music.

In fact, it had forgotten how to dance at all, and the country felt rainier because it was missing a dance.

All in all, Gray and its friends lived too close to the ground and felt like they were just little caterpillars who had to survive being eaten by a bird, smashed by a dry leaf, crushed by a paw or drowned under a drop of rain. So, they decided to do something about it.

At first, they had tried to do it alone, using the power of their brains, but their brains were too small and didn’t have the power needed for such heavy lifting. Finally, all of them huddled in a single cocoon to brainstorm what they could do to stop being afraid of life and start enjoying it like any other caterpillar.

As they all started to pay attention to the sounds of the forest, they discovered that they could hear the quietness of the forest in winter, they could see the smiles of the flowers in the meadows, they could taste the hundreds of different plants they hadn’t even noticed before, they could feel the softness of the forest floor underneath their many feet, they could dance by keeping half their legs on the ground and moving their upper body to the rhythm of the rain, they could…

They were so absorbed in noticing these new pleasures while protected by their cocoon that they didn’t notice that something was happening to all of them.

It was Ariaseli, with its big brain—for a caterpillar, of course, let’s not get carried away now—who said the big word:

“Metamorphosis!”

Katarka thought of Kafka and simply smiled, as did Emmmmi. Claudina couldn’t help but make a joke: “don’t start calling names!” Martini and Pierre, our two foreigners, cried happy tears, as well as Evvvi and Flower, who noticed that physical and mental pain hurt a bit less when your belly is also hurting from shared laughter.

A minute later, they emerged from their cocoon.

Flying up to the forest canopy, they now noticed with all their senses the mountains, the forest, the meadows, the flowers…—well, and also a whiff of other odors. After all, they had been quite close to one another in the cocoon for a while, but let’s not dwell on the dirty details—and they thought:

“Not too bad, not bad at all!”, or perhaps “Could be worse!”, or possibly just a big “WOW!” in bold letters, I’m not totally sure, eyes and mouths—or is it snouts?—wide open.

For when a tiny caterpillar learns to stop and smell the flowers, as they say, it morphs into something else, and the world becomes a better place for everyone because it now has one more beautiful

butterfly!

P.S. And what, you may wonder, became of the humble gray moth? Ah, I was hoping you’d ask. For after watching its friends shed their caterpillar skins and rise as butterflies, it came to realize it had been a butterfly all along—it simply hadn’t been looking deeply enough into its own heart.