Double take on a quick tale -2

Apu's take on A quick tale 94

One or the other

Is that a silk saree you’re wearing? Lovely colour. It reminds me of a story. Yes, Yes, Another quick tale. I hope you’re not yet bored of them, because I haven’t finished telling all of them yet. Well, maybe when I am 95, or when I run out of ideas. Whichever happens earlier. One or the other. Anyways, to get back to my story.
A woman (it was hard to tell her age) was stirring sugar into her cup of tea while looking out at her garden. It’s strange, she thought, there are no butterflies. At this time of the year, the air is usually full of fluttering wings. The red ones always reminded her of this one silk sari she kept at the bottom of her wardrobe. Every year, just this one day of the year, there was always a posse of red butterflies with rectangular yellow spots. How did they know what day it was? It was strange. Still, no stranger than what she did. Whenever she saw those butterflies, she would take out that beautiful red silk sari and drape it around herself, the pallu left loose over her shoulder, trailing behind like a garden vareli ad.

Ok, I admit, this isn’t as quick as I though it would be. Still, sit down, right there, don’t you dare get up. Let me finish and I’ll get you something, maybe one of those imported chocolates, how about that. No, no, not a bribe, just a little something.

The woman in the story, this year, she noticed that there were no butterflies, red or any other colour. It was upsetting. There wasn’t any other occasion to take out that sari. It had to be for that reason only. She could either wear it when the butterflies came out, matching matching. Or she couldn’t wear it at all. This taught her that ultimately, you could never have everything you wanted Everything was a compromise, she concluded. Satisfied that she had reduced all of life’s dilemmas to a simple aphorism, she took a noisy sip from her mug.