There once was a boy who liked yellow butterflies. His favorite place to go in summertime was to the flowery green fields where he could see hundreds of butterflies flying in circles and drying their wings. The fields were on the other side of the hill behind his house, further away in the heart of the valley. His days were spent fantasizing about having a butterfly of his own - one that would keep him happy even during the longest of winters.

A few years passed and the boy stumbled into a pet shop after having seen a cage in the pet shop’s window. The boy asked what the cage cost and found it to be quite expensive. He left, determined to come back and purchase the cage once he had earned enough money on his own to do so.

After having saved almost a full year the boy went back to the shop and purchased the cage. He then asked the storeowner if they also sold butterflies. The owner answered “no”, and the boy was puzzled.

“But you sell butterfly cages!” he retorted. “Why don’t you sell butterflies, too?”

The owner answered the boy by telling him that the cage that the boy had purchased was meant for canary birds and not for butterflies. The boy pouted and left the store with the cage in a bag. To him, this cage would be perfect for butterflies, too.

The next day, the boy went out to the fields with his canary cage and after many tries, captured his first butterfly which he immediately put into the cage. The boy added grass and flowers to the bottom of the cage and once he was back home, he even put a small seashell in there in which he filled with fresh water. The cage was set on the chest of drawers that was standing beside his bed. The boy smiled as he turned out the light that evening and went soundly to sleep – a very happy little boy.

The next day he awoke to see to his disappointment that the butterfly had somehow escaped and was nowhere ever to be found again.

Disheartened, the boy reinforced the cage with extra wire so that the holes of the cage became smaller. He then went back out to the field and captured a new pretty butterfly. Oh, how the boy loved butterflies, especially yellow ones! He brought his butterfly home and kept it alive for five days.

Then on evening of the fifth day while he was refilling the seashell with water, the butterfly escaped. It flew about his room and almost drove the boy wild with sadness and anger. He had worked so hard to earn the money and buy the cage and he had made improvements on the thing to perfection. This butterfly was his reward! It was his due!

The next morning when the boy’s mother opened the door to his bedroom to say “good morning!” the butterfly flew out and into the rest of the home to land on a windowpane in the kitchen. Eventually, his mom opened up the window and set the butterfly free. Just at that moment the boy came into the kitchen just to see the butterfly leave it’s temporary confinement and he cried out, “No! That’s MY butterfly! You may not let it go!” But of course, it was too late. The butterfly was free.

With a determined attitude, the boy returned to the green fields where he once again succeeded in capturing a butterfly. This time he kept his captive a secret from his mom, hoping to be able to keep his catch for himself. And instead of his opening up the door to the cage to refill the seashell with water, he began using a straw that he led through the wires of the cage to let water flow from outside the cage, through the straw and into the seashell. Fresh grass and flowers were simply stuck through the bars and into the cage for the butterfly to live on.

It was a pretty cage, a beautiful butterfly and a very happy boy that spent time in that bedroom. And so much to the boy’s surprise, something unexpected happened - something that he could not understand. If all was well, why then had the bright yellow color on the butterflies’ wings begun to fade? Why then had the butterfly stopped flittering around in its cage amongst the grass, the flowers and the little seashell pond?

Had the boy not known better, he would have thought that the butterfly had become ill. But of course the butterfly could not be ill. It was loved. It was cherished – and it was his. No one could better care for a butterfly than he could!

But the butterfly did not get any better. In the end, the boy returned to the green grassy fields with the butterfly cage in hand to set the sick butterfly free. When he emptied the cage onto the grass, the butterfly just lay there. The boy turned sadly away and went home with an empty cage.

Time passed. The boy still adored yellow butterflies but he felt bad about his mishaps in succeeding in keeping butterflies on his own. He could not understand why he could not keep one in his cage and make it happy all at the same time.

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the problem was with those three butterflies that he had caged. There were so many butterflies in the world. The fields were full of happy, beautiful fluttering butterflies! He simply must have had poor luck in catching three faulty butterflies. That, for sure, was the only logical explanation for his failures with them. Thinking this way calmed his disappointment and soothed his ego.

The boy was ready to go for a new try again. This time though, he decided to change his tactics. Perhaps if he pretended to not actually cage the creature, it might choose to stay? Maybe this was the clue to having butterflies of his own? It was well worth a try.

And so on a sunny day he went with his cage out to the green fields to catch butterflies. He caught one and put it in his cage but he didn´t shut or latch the door. When the butterfly flew out he re-caught it – or one just like it – and lay happily on the grass beside his caged butterfly. But after an hour of catching and re-catching yellow butterflies he became tired of doing so. After having chased butterflies and trying to keep them, he decided to try something else. He sat a long time on the field with a frown on his face and pondered over it.

After a while, the boy was sure he had figured out how to keep a butterfly. He caught a yellow butterfly, caged it and towed it home with him to his room.

Later on, after supper and bath and once his pajamas were on, from behind closed doors the boy went to his top desk drawer where his pencils and erasers were kept. The boy retracted a pair of scissors.

The boy opened up the cage and with scissors in hand silently moved them into the cage and towards the butterfly. In a single snip, one yellow wing fell onto the small mound of grass and flowers that lined the bottom of the cage. Part of the paisley designed wing landed in the seashell pond where its tip floated on the clear water. With the other hand the boy reached into the cage to pick up the yellow wing that he had cut off. He quietly shut the cage door and put back his scissors.

With the wet wing in hand he walked to his bed where he lifted up his pillow and placed the wing ever so gently underneath it. Then he climbed into bed and shut off the light. Finally, the boy was happy. Now, he could rest knowing that he had succeeded for sure. He fell asleep wishing that the world understood better how he and beautiful butterflies belonged together.

The next morning he awoke, crawled out of bed and bent over the cage to see his pretty yellow butterfly.

The boy was stunned! Instead of a yellow butterfly in the cage, he found a beige pod hanging from a reed of grass. He ran back to his bed, lifted up the pillow and searched for the wing that he had put there the night before. To his dismay, the only thing left of the wing was now particles of brown dust.

He let the pod hang there for days and for weeks. He was sure that he would eventually see a new yellow butterfly, one totally his own, coming out of this pod and was therefore filled with happy anticipation.

Then one day, the pod split and out of it came the ugliest brown wonder the boy had ever seen. It seemed to be covered in fuzz, and it moved very slowly. The boy opened up the cage door and stuck in his hand. He wanted to touch the thing. What was it?

As soon as his forefinger touched the creature he quickly let out a yelp of pain as it had stung him. Under the fuzz, the caterpillar had poisonous spikes. Instinctively, his hand balled into a fist of rage and as he tried to retract it quickly from the cage, his hand became stuck inside the door. As he shook the cage off, he damaged it, and his hand actually became stung several more times. Finally free of the cage and the animal that stung so fiercely, he ran to his mom, sobbing in tears.

After that day the boy never returned to the field of butterflies. After that day, he never again attempted to catch or cage a yellow butterfly. But as long as he lived, he continued to wonder why butterflies were not as attracted to him as he was to them. Most often, he fell asleep at night alone in bed, thinking about how much he longed for a single yellow butterfly of his own.