Be My eyes

In a faraway garden, among tall grasses and winding cucumber vines, there grew a little yellow flower. Every morning, a butterfly came to rest upon it.

She had blue and orange wings. Whenever she flew, she looked like a fragment of sky that had somehow fallen among the leaves.

But the butterfly did not come for the flower. She came for a little cucumber hiding beneath it.

Every morning, before the sun had fully risen, the little cucumber waited for her. The moment he heard the soft flutter of her wings, he would push his way out from beneath the leaves.

“You came…”

The butterfly would settle on the flower.

“Didn’t I promise I would?”

“You did.”

“I never forget a promise.”

It did not take long for them to discover how different they were. The cucumber had roots. He could not go anywhere. The butterfly had wings. She could never stay anywhere for long.

Yet somehow, that difference made them love each other more.

The butterfly told him about the world beyond the garden wall—the narrow stream beneath the trees, the fields she had crossed, and a red rose that opened only at sunset.

The cucumber listened as though every word carried him somewhere far beyond the leaves.

“I want to see the world one day,” he said.

The butterfly laughed softly.

“But you can’t fly.”

“Then be my eyes.”

She was quiet for a moment.

Then she said, “And you be the place I can return to when I grow tired of flying.”

After that, she no longer came only in the mornings. Sometimes she returned in the late afternoon. Sometimes she settled so close that the tips of her wings brushed against his leaves.

“If I had wings,” the cucumber whispered, “I would go with you.”

“If I had roots,” she replied, “I would stay.”

Neither of them knew how much those words would one day matter.

The days passed, and the cucumber grew. He became longer and heavier, until the leaves could no longer hide him. The butterfly remained light and young, moving from flower to flower as though the whole world belonged to her.

One morning, the cucumber asked, “Will you always be a butterfly?”

She smiled.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

She rested on the edge of the yellow flower.

“Our lives are short.”

The cucumber fell silent. Until that moment, he had never allowed himself to imagine a morning when she might not return. For the first time, he was afraid of growing up. He thought that if he could somehow remain small, perhaps everything between them would remain unchanged.

But life does not wait for our wishes.

One morning, the gardener came. He reached between the leaves and pulled the cucumber from the vine. The little cucumber clung to the stem with all his strength, but he could not hold on. As he was carried away, he turned for one last look at the yellow flower.

The butterfly was not there.

His heart sank.

“She’ll come tomorrow,” he whispered.

He did not know that she had come that very morning. She had rested on the same flower. She had searched for him. But he was already gone.

That evening, she stayed on the flower for a long time. She returned the next morning, too. But no one beneath the leaves called her name.

The cucumber was taken to a house that smelled of vinegar, garlic, and fresh herbs. They washed him, placed him inside a large earthen jar, and poured salt water and vinegar over him. Then they sealed the jar.

Darkness closed around him.

At first, he was frightened. Then he thought of the butterfly.

“When they open this jar,” he told himself, “I’ll find her.”

On the first night, he called her name.

“Butterfly…”

There was no answer.

On the second night, he called again.

“I’m still here.”

Again, silence.

The nights passed. Slowly, the cucumber discovered that waiting was like counting drops of water in the dark. You never know how many are left. You simply keep waiting.

Whenever he heard a sound outside the jar, his heart beat faster.

Maybe today.

Maybe today the lid would open.

But the days went by, and he lived on the memory of her wings.

Until one day, the jar was opened. Light poured in. The little cucumber, now a pickle, was lifted out with the others and placed on a plate.

That evening, guests had gathered in the house. The host brought the freshly opened pickles to the dinner table and set the plate down among the dishes.

The cucumber hardly noticed the people around him. He was finally free. Now he only had one thing to do.

Find the butterfly.

He looked around the room. And then he saw it.

A small frame hanging on the wall.

His heart seemed to stop.

The butterfly was inside. The same wings. The same colors. But completely still.

“Butterfly!”

He called with all his strength.

There was no answer.

“It’s me! I came back!”

Silence.

“I told you I would come back… Don’t you remember?”

She did not move.

For a moment, the cucumber thought she was angry with him.

He lowered his voice.

“Are you upset with me?”

A spoon lying beside the plate had heard everything.

“Little cucumber,” it said gently, “she can’t hear you anymore.”

The cucumber stared at the spoon.

“Why?”

The spoon glanced toward the frame.

“Butterflies do not live for very long. Her life ended some time ago. The people here dried her wings and placed her in this frame.”

The cucumber said nothing.

Suddenly, everything came together. The mornings when she had waited for him. The last day he had left the garden. The nights he had spent inside the jar, believing he would see her again. And now, the butterfly who could never move her wings again.

A tear slipped down the cucumber’s face.

“I thought you were waiting for me.”

The spoon answered quietly, “Perhaps she thought the same.”

The cucumber lowered his head.

“I should have come back sooner.”

The spoon said nothing.

“If I had known how little time we had…”

He could not finish.

Sometimes, it is only when we arrive too late that we understand how early we should have begun the journey.

He took his eyes off the frame and turned toward the window. Outside, the darkness of the night was illuminated by a single shining star.

A human hand reached toward the plate. The little cucumber did not close his eyes. He no longer had roots in the earth, nor wings to fly, yet the breeze coming through the window carried the scent of that distant garden and the tall grass.

The fingers lifted him. In that brief moment suspended between the earth and the sky, a quiet smile settled upon his face. He was ready—not for an end, but to surrender himself to the stream whose path the butterfly had once shown him.