The Almond-Coloured Butterfly

In the almond field, when the moonlight rested on the branches, there appeared a butterfly the colour of an almond shell.

Nina saw it first.

It did not flutter like other butterflies. It moved slowly, carrying something invisible between its wings. When it passed near a person, that person suddenly remembered a kind word.

One evening Nina was sad because her father was away for work. She had drawn him a picture but did not know how to send the hug that was inside it.

The almond butterfly landed on the paper.

“Write only what is true,” it whispered.

Nina wrote: I miss you when the chair beside me is empty.

The butterfly touched the words with its wings. A little light rose from the page and settled on its back.

“Will you carry it?”

“I carry what is gentle,” said the butterfly.

It flew over the almond trees, over the roofs, over the road that shone under the Moon. Far away, Nina’s father was sitting near a window. Suddenly he felt warmth in his chest and thought of the empty chair at home.

He called that evening.

“I felt your drawing,” he said.

Nina laughed. “It arrived?”

“Before the phone rang.”

From then on, the almond butterfly came whenever someone had a kind message that was too soft for loud voices: a thank you, an apology, a goodnight, I am thinking of you.

Nina learned that love does not always need heavy packages. Sometimes it travels in a sentence, a wingbeat, a little light on paper.

And because it travels lightly, it can go very far.