One winter month, and this is all I've got...

But I'm happy. It's bizarre. It's ill-informed. It's symbolism. Enjoy. Mmmmm..delicious snow....

An Outside Joke

Authors Note: It should be blatantly obvious that everything I learned about the life cycle of the butterfly was taught to me and first grade and the majority of my facts are most likely outdated, made up, or completely absurd.
My apologies.
-J.M.
(Coughs, inhales.)
Once upon a time, (and oh, what a lovely time it was,) there were two little larvae who were born at the same pinpoint in universal time & who were entirely unrelated. They developed separately, in a vacuum, until the faithful minute after their birth when their stars finally crossed. It went like this.
Larva Linford was minding his own business, doing what larva generally do best—eating or spreading disease or something when who should stumble along but that other little larva, Chrysanthemum Rhododendron. And, I mean it was alright, Linford was just wallowing in his state of larvaic joy, Chrysanthemum Rhododendron was sort of scooting up, stopping, looking bashfully at Linford, scooting, stopping, looking, scooting, stopping, looking, scooting, stopping, looking, clearing her throat, and onward and onsuch.
“Hello,” said Linford gleefully, finally noticing her existence.
“Hi,” said Chrysanthemum Rhododendron. “I’m Chrysanthemum Rhododendron and I’ve been watching you…”
“That’s kind of weird,” Linford remarked, smiling.
“I know but…I mean, I’ve noticed you’re eating/spreading disease incorrectly and its very troubling.”
“Oh, really?” was Linford’s response. He sounded slightly hurt. “How, then, do I eat/spread disease correctly?”
“You do it like this,” she said, demonstrating, waving her arms frantically.
“That’s ABSURD! I don’t believe you.”
“Fine, ruin your life. Die quickly. Never find love. Go to a second rate college in the suburbs of Philly and enjoy the gang violence, sell out, listen to sub-par music. Suits me just fine.” With that, she shuffled away, over to the other side of leaf, where she remained, periodically glancing at Linford.
He continued stubbornly on with his previous way of doing things, ostensibly not caring much, but, after a time, he decided to give her methods just one tiny shot. Her dismay at his lack of competence had done nothing but unsettle his young mind and, to his pleasant surprise, she was right. Her style was better.
She had been staring intently as he had done this with a smile on her face and, as he turned to remark she said simply, “I told you so.”
They became good friends after this. Chrysanthemum Rhododendron’s consistent state of wisdom won him over and, though Linford retained his stubborn streak and would often refuse to listen initially, after time, he would always realize she was right.
A mere moment after their beautiful friendship began, however, Chrysanthemum Rhododendron had an announcement to make.
“Nature is calling,” she told him.
“Oh,” he said, innocently not understanding what was going on.
“I’m going away for a long time now and may never ever see you again,” she told him.
Linford thought for a moment.
“Well, can I follow you?” he asked.
“No,” she told him, “I have to make this journey on my own.
“Will nature give me a call, too?” he asked.
“Eventually,” she told him.
“So this is good bye?” he asked.
“So this is good bye,” she told him, and she started to shuffle away.
“I’m going to miss you…” Linford told her, after she was a distance away.
She didn’t hear him.
***
Linford wallowed for a little while, unsure of what to do. He paced back and forth, did all the things she’d taught him to do correctly, ate/spread diseases without the vigor he’d previously used to accomplish such tasks. These feelings, whatever they were, were foreign to him and he was uncertain of much.
A good three minutes after she’d left, he decided to find her, secretly. He followed the path of slime she’d left behind her, because all caterpillars leave slime. When the path of slime had ended, he found himself frightened—in the place where her path had ceased; there was a scary fake lead type thing with more depth than the usual. It was confusing, an utter mystery.
“Ach mensch!” he cried. “Chrysanthemum Rhododendron has been eaten by some freakish SMALL ROCK! Whatever am I going to do?”
A moment’s thought will reveal that Linford does not follow the narrator’s line of logic, I assure you, readers, it looked like some kind of leaf.
Panic stepped in.
Linford began jumping yelling. He was terrified at the loss of his friend. “I DON’T BELIEVE IN GOD!” he screamed. “I DON’T BELIEVE IN GOD!!” His screaming abruptly ceased, he was struck by the most peculiar desire. He was going to climb up the twig, place himself beside Chrysanthemum Rhododendron, wrap himself in some sort of…internal secretion stuff, and wait. This craving replaced all of the longings in his minimalistic mind and he found himself blindly following the template which had just been catapulted into his tiny skull. Once the task found itself completed, he fell asleep. What interesting dreams he had…
***
A tapping, a feeling of being utterly trapped—Linford decided he must get out of this shell. This shell? Wait…when did that happen? Billions of legs, he thought, I’ll use them. Billions of legs? BILLIONS OF LEGS? They were her once, right, all 1,000,000,000 of them? What’s going on? Come on, God, when I said I didn’t believe in you…it was just a joke, right? You knew that, right? That it was just a joke? You didn’t need to take away my billions of legs or…trap me in this shell, I mean, come on…Getting out? How do I do that? Kicking? I can kick still, I have…some legs…right? Right. Kicking. Squeezing, stretching, scratching, and kicking, a lot of kicking. Almost out, almost out, almost out…so bored. So boring. Want to sleep. Or…just…read a book or something. Books? What are books? I’m going insane. Finnegan’s Wake---Ach mensch, I missed it, didn’t I?
Finally, Dear readers, Linford did, in fact, escape from his shell—I believe it is technically called a…uh….syphilis? Perhaps. Crucifix? Sisyphus? Something along those lines. You no doubt know what it is I mean. He was about to give up due to boredom and an utter lack of willpower, but, he broke out, it was very nice. And his memory returned as well.
“Hm,” he said to himself, “wings. Neat. Not sure what I need them for, but… I’m sure it will hit me.”
His memory came back! Come on, Linford!
And then it hit him-- Chrysanthemum Rhododendron! SHE was the reason this had all happened, or…why he was here, or something… He looked all around. Was she still here? Hadn’t she been EATEN? He looked around quickly, caught sight of—OH JESUS CHRIST SHE HAD BEEN EATEN! THE ROCK THING—THAT WAS GONE NOW TOO!! NO MO’ ROCK!! And as Linford was screaming frantically in his mind, a voice—calm, slightly confused and a tad bit angry—
“Linford?” it asked, “that’s not really you is it? For God’s sakes…”
“Chrysanthemum Rhododendron? Where are you?” he inquired, happily twitching about like and epileptic, searching frantically for her face.
“I’m right here, you idiot. We’ve undergone the process of metamorphosis—we’re…uh…well, I don’t know what we’re called, but we’ve got wings and fewer legs,” she explained.
“Aww…” he sighed. “I liked having many legs.”
“Yeah, so did I….Wait a second! You’re distracting from the point! I’m very angry! You weren’t supposed to follow me, you crazy vestibule of air and bug parts!”
“Well…it was sad when you weren’t around and so…I decided to try to find you…and then I made myself into a little rock and fell asleep…and then I freaked out…and found out I had wings…” Linford explained.
“Yeah? Well get over it! No one was supposed to follow me! I was supposed to face the rest of my life utterly alone and you ruined the chances of that ever happening! Wretched boy!”
And Linford was sad. “People don’t follow people because they want to ruin other people’s lives,” Linford said, “They follow them because the other person is the only chance they have of not ruining their own, or something corny and introspective along those general lines…”
Chrysanthemum Rhododendron sighed. “You are very frustrating,” she told him.
“I know,” he said.
“But I like you, so fine.”
“Does that mean I can stay with you, except when I need time to work on my epic and you need time for finding wisdom and betterness in the trees, etc?” he inquired, all excited like, exactly the way one would imagine a bug would ask when they get excited.
“Yeah, sure, whatever. And by the way, we can fly.”
“Huh,” replied Linford. “Do you want to go skiing?”
“Yeah, I want to go skiing,” Chrysanthemum Rhododendron told him.
They went skiing.
The end.

P.s.: It has not yet been edited, and all the italics have been removed. Get over it.