Once upon a time on l’isle des Papillons, there lived a royal family and their minions.  It was a small island.  The king and queen had only one son and they hoped to find a suitable princess for their Fabien.  But Fabien did not like the confines of the castle. It was boring, no children to play with and now that he would soon be sixteen, he had more and more thoughts of escaping this royal prison.

He was permitted to go fishing with Jean Lessard, the cooks brother.  He rarely caught anything but he learned to swim, diving into the ocean and swimming with the fish made him feel a part of nature.  He got to know Jean’s son Philippe. They were the same age, same height and actually looked a lot alike…it was uncanny.  Lately,  Jean and Philippe Lessard were taking a longer route to the beach. They found a beautiful wild garden a few kilometres into the woods.  They would stop for a few hours there and eat their packed lunch Jean’s brother had prepared for the prince. Of course there was too much for one person and the three enjoyed the royal picnic.

golden lilies
tease enchanted harem,
butterflies

One day Fabien was lying down on the grass admiring the daisies and wild lilies in the garden.  Butterflies were resting calmly as if on cue it was their temps de sieste.  Fabien had an idea…he switched clothes with Philippe and decided they would reverse their roles for one month.  Fabien was hoping it would give him the opportunity to enjoy his freedom and get to know some of the other peasants on the island.  Philippe was delighted to have this chance to eat all the delicacies he had never tasted but heard of from his uncle.

And so three weeks went by and Fabien was enjoying his freedom.  He had even met a beautiful girl by the name of Tanya.  They would spend hours at the end of their work day in the fields, in that special garden he had introduced to his new love.

One day Fabien rose early to go for a walk in his favourite garden.  He tripped along the way on a gnarled root bulging on the path and fell to the ground unconscious having hit his head on a rock.   He was there all day still out cold surrounded by fluttering butterflies, hopefully a princess might wake the sleeping beauty.

budding flower
graced by butterfly kiss
beauty rests

© Tournesol ’15

Haibun Thinking January 20th 2015

I know I wrote too long a narrative but got carried away with the photo.