I’m not the kind of person who looks up symptoms on the internet, so I had no idea what was happening to me.

Firstly I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep. I had eaten too much and then lost my appetite. I felt totally topsy-turvy. I cocooned myself in my doona. I listened to chrysalis on repeat. I didn’t speak to anyone. I had no energy and my limbs felt liquid. I didn’t do much of anything for days.

Then slowly I stretched my limbs, threw off the covers and said hello world! Bursting outside I turned my face to the sun and basked a moment, drying off the funk of bed, feeling like a totally new person. I couldn’t remember feeling better.

It was about then I noticed the colourful wings unfurling from half way up my back. There was nothing to do but to fly straight to google to find out what the heck was going on!

 

Author’s note:

The direction of this story was prompted by the predictive text google suggested one day…I was searching “Do cat…egories of consumers…blah blah blah” for work and instead google suggested the search “Do cat…erpillars know they’ll become butterflies”. It was a child’s question to a science forum and so much more interesting than my original search. Not only did it inspire this story but it also prompted me to do a little research into the specifics of what they remember from stage to stage and also the exact metamorphosis journey.