Caterpillars

I stepped out of the forest and saw Master Soong bending over his cabbage plants. His long, white hair was tied back into a ponytail that hung down past the middle of his back. I knew what he was doing: picking caterpillars off the cabbage and broccoli plants, a job he does patiently every morning for as long as the cabbages are in season.

The caterpillars’ hunger is relentless—they never stop eating. Early every morning, at the break of dawn, Master Soong goes out into his garden, stands in the rising sun, and painstakingly plucks caterpillars off the leaves, one by one.

Sometimes I help him. The first time I did, I learned that finding caterpillars isn’t as easy as you might think. They’re green—as green as the cabbage leaves themselves—and pretty hard to see, but Master Soong has taught me the secret to finding them. “Follow their poop,” he always says. “It's black and much easier to spot on the green cabbage leaves than the caterpillars themselves.” At first I thought it was a strange thing to do, but I soon learned Master Soong was right—to find any animal, find its poo and follow it!

“Master Soong!” I called out to him. He looked up and smiled.

“Hello, Sondra! Have you had your breakfast yet?”—Master Soong’s way of saying “Good morning.”

“Yes, I have. Thank you,” I said. “And you, Master Soong? Have you eaten yet?” I said, returning his traditional greeting. “I’ve brought you some steamed buns.” I reached into my backpack and pulled out the extra buns my father had steamed for me.

“Thank you, Sondra. These look wonderful. I had my breakfast early this morning, before sunrise, but I’ll save these buns for tomorrow’s breakfast.” He grabbed the buns and put them into a black-and-red, woven bag he had slung over his shoulder. “They’ll go well with the three eggs the hens left me this morning.

“Why have you come so early? Our class isn’t until later this afternoon,” Master Soong said, reaching down to pluck a caterpillar off a pale-green cabbage leaf. “Did school get canceled today?”

“No, school hasn’t been canceled. Nothing like that. I want to ask you about a vision I had last night,” I watched him bend down and pull another caterpillar off a cabbage leaf before placing the squiggly creature into his left palm.

“I thought I heard you calling me,” he said.

“Yes, it was me. I was calling you,” I answered him. “But how did you know?”

I told Master Soong about my dream. "I saw a black swamp. Then, an icy jolt hit me in my chest—it made my blood feel like slush" I said my voice dropping to a whisper.

He didn’t say anything about it to me except “I see” or “How about that.” I wanted clear answers, but he wasn’t giving me any. He kept focused on the caterpillars, picking them off one-by-one.

The morning was getting hot; tiny drops of sweat were beading-up on Master Soong’s forehead. As usual, his thin white beard was starting to stick to his Gray Tang suit. I could smell his aroma—the way he always smelled: perspiration, ginger, and a tinge of garlic, all mixed together with a healthy dose of fresh air and morning sunshine.

Whenever I am around Master Soong, I want to help—I just can’t help myself. I reached down and began plucking caterpillars off the cabbage leaves. I’ve been helping him for so long it’s something that comes to me naturally. Over the years, I must have plucked hundreds if not thousands of caterpillars off the cabbage leaves. I pulled two more fat worms off an already destroyed cabbage leaf. It was full of holes and was covered in small black dots. From years of experience picking “the cabbage worms,” I knew from the amount of poop on the leaves, there were more of them. I looked underneath the leaves and, sure enough, I was right. There they were—three more caterpillars chomping away ... ready to be plucked.

“These caterpillars will eat all of my cabbage and broccoli if I don’t find a way to distract their ferocious appetites,” Master Soong said as he pulled another one off the leaves. He added the wiggly thing to the group of caterpillars he’d already collected in his left hand.

Soon he had a handful of the squirming creatures. Some of them were crawling out of his palm and onto his wrist, trying to get away. One was even crawling up his forearm.

“Don’t the caterpillars know we’re trying to save them?” I asked. “Why are they trying so hard to get away? Where are they trying to go?”

“We have taken them away from the only place they know—their food. They are going nowhere in particular. Instead, they are trying to get away from the unfamiliar. The caterpillars yearn to go back to what they know. For them the leaves are safe, the palm of my hand is a scary place and not nearly as delicious as the leaves.

We carried the caterpillars over to a short wooden barrel Master Soong had put over a cabbage plant. “Here you go,” he said as he bent down and one by one placed the caterpillars on top of the green leaves.

“Won’t they just crawl out and go back to the garden?” I asked him.

“As long as there is food here, they won’t go in search of any more anywhere else.”

I thought of the boys in my class and how much they were like cabbage worms. Master Soong was right; they were never settled and quiet unless there was food around.

“What happens when the caterpillars change into butterflies?” I asked as I bent over the barrel and carefully set down the caterpillars I had collected.

“They’ll know what to do. It’s an open barrel; once they have their wings, they’ll fly away free.”

“Can you talk to them?” I asked.

“Ha,” Master Soong chuckled. His eyes started to twinkle like they always do when he is about to say something that perplexes me. “And what would you have me say to them?”

“Well, perhaps you could start by asking them not to eat your vegetables.”

“I suppose I could speak to them,” Master Soong stroked his white beard, “but I doubt they would listen to me; they certainly wouldn’t care about my vegetables. Butterflies know the leaves are tasty and nutritious; that’s why they lay their eggs on them. Like all animals, they only want what’s best for their children.”

“But doesn’t more eggs mean more caterpillars?” I was annoyed that Master Soong couldn’t see the futility of picking caterpillars off his vegetables day in and day out. I glared at him. “And won’t those caterpillars eat your plants and grow into more butterflies, only to lay more eggs?”

Master Soong sighed. He stood up straight and gave me another smile. His eyes twinkled again. I knew he was about to say something even more perplexing. “Yes, you’re right. It’s an ongoing battle with the caterpillars. But that’s the way life is.”

“It seems very impolite of them,” I said. “I don’t understand why nothing can be done to keep the butterflies away from the garden.”

“Some folks think poisoning them is the answer, but it’s not. We need butterflies to pollinate flowers. No caterpillars, no butterflies and no vegetables. You see, every creature big and small is important to life.”

The beetle had said something like that. Surely they will listen to reason, I thought. “So ... why not talk to them?” I asked Master Soong.

“Talking to them won’t help. They’re certainly not going to listen to an old man trying to save his vegetable garden when their children are at stake.”

“Hmm,” I paused. “Could it be that caterpillars eat so much so fast ‘cause they can’t wait to become butterflies?”

Master Soong’s eyes twinkled again. “You have good logic, Little Nagula, but caterpillars have no idea they’ll soon be butterflies, just as you have no idea who you will become.

Caterpillars don’t even know they are caterpillars. Hunger is all they know. The desire to eat is the only thing they can understand, and it clouds their minds, to everything else. It prevents them from seeing anything else that’s going on around them. All they feel is hunger so they eat non-stop, trying to satisfy their insatiable desire for food.”

“What would happen if they did realize that someday they’ll turn into butterflies,” I asked.

“Then everything would be different—the entire universe would change.”

This really confused me. I thought about it for a minute but I still didn’t really understand what he meant. Like I said, sometimes the things Master Soong says don’t make much sense to me. I decided not to ask any more questions about caterpillars and butterflies; it would only confuse me more.