This is a true story posted by Chris Hamer of the Rowley Gallery, on their 'Frames of Reference' blog.
One day a man from over the hills came into the shop to buy a
greeting card. He was a graceless man of few words though he did say the
card was for his sick mother, but the words seemed to stumble over his
tongue as he spoke. He was a large, lumbering, oaf of a man yet he was
very quick to choose a card, and he paid for it with a crisp, new £50
note.
The humble shopkeeper took the payment from his calloused hand and
felt a shiver in her bones, but she completed the transaction and gave
the man his change. When she later tried to deposit the note at her
bank the cashier refused to accept it, saying it was a fake and not
worth the paper it was printed on. The shopkeeper was outraged and
determined to increase the value of her payment. She went to see the Scissor Wizard
whose dexterous hands transformed the counterfeit note into a trio of
perfect butterflies, increasing its value threefold. His quick fingers
animated the creatures and they flew into the welcoming hands of the
shopkeeper. She held them gently as she carried them home. Her friend
the frame-maker offered to build them a protective shelter but she
declined, preferring them to be unconfined and free to fly and
flutter-by. She keeps them now by her bedside so that each night as she
sleeps they circle and spin around her head tying knots in the air to
protect her from nightmares.
She dreams peacefully of winning the National Lottery, EuroMillions and Thunderball, little knowing that these are the names of her butterflies and she is already rich beyond her dreams.
