Ghazal Mhanna, 15 — Trainers’ Academy, Tulkarm
He sat on his bench in the garden sipping his coffee quietly, enjoying the warm sunshine and the gentle spring breeze. Usaid glanced towards the wall to find that its shadow had disappeared…
The Butterflies
Sarah Fathi Hammad, 16 — Al-Hamawi Centre, Al-Eizariya/Jerusalem
It began when little Rafi was playing alone among the flowers one day. She reached her hand up into the air as if to catch the sunlight, and suddenly felt a warm tingle in her palm. She opened her hand and found a small glowing butterfly circling around her, as if it had known her for ever so long. The butterfly landed on Rafi’s finger and she began to play with it, then it flew off. Rafi laughed and chased after it, trying to catch it, and the butterfly kept coming close and darting away, as if it was playing with her too.
In the village that maps always forgot, there was a girl named Rafi, and they say she was born with a butterfly on her palm where the lines should be. She wasn’t like the other children. While they played with stones, she copied the butterflies. While they ran after a ball, she sat among the flowers watching them bloom, butterflies flying all around her. This was Rafi’s secret, and nobody knew it but her.
When Rafi said to the butterfly “Come back”, it really would come back and settle on her finger. And from that day on, she began to discover that butterflies came out of her hands — at first one, then two, then little flocks of butterflies in every colour. But they weren’t ordinary butterflies. Each one had its own being and spirit, its own colour and meaning… Yellow butterflies spreading joy, blue butterflies wiping away fear, white butterflies erasing sadness, and rare purple ones that only appeared when a heart needed hope, and golden ones that healed the hearts of the weary.
Whenever she saw someone sad, she released a yellow butterfly to plant joy in their heart. If she saw someone frightened, she sent a blue butterfly to calm them. And when she found someone worried, she sent a butterfly to circle around them until they smiled. The villagers used to say that comfort sometimes came for no reason at all… but they never knew the reason was a girl who passed by in silence, leaving behind wings that filled the air with joy and hope and delight. And the most wonderful thing was that this girl could hear the butterflies, and talk to them for hours.
Years passed, and Rafi became the village’s hidden soul. But with time, something began to change inside her. She began to feel a kind of responsibility — whenever she saw a tear, she felt guilty if she didn’t send a butterfly right away. She found herself watching people instead of sharing the moment with them, searching for a problem to fix instead of enjoying her own life.
One cold night, while the wind was slapping at her bedroom window, Rafi stood before it trying to comfort a child crying in the house across the way. She stretched out her hand, closed her eyes and whispered, “Come out.” But… nothing happened. No warm tingle, no light, no flutter of wings. She stretched out her other hand, rubbed her palms together hard, and called at the top of her voice: “Come out!” But nothing happened, and her hand that had once been a garden and spring for butterflies became just an ordinary hand with pale palm lines.
Weeks passed, and the village began to wither. The sadness that had once faded quickly now grew heavier and heavier, and Rafi was the most heartbroken of all. She felt she’d lost who she was. Who was Rafi without her butterflies?! She decided to go back to the place where the story began—the old flower field. She sat there for hours, crying silently, until she heard a sound. It wasn’t a human voice—it sounded like leaves rustling in the trees.
There was a single butterfly, pale in colour, barely able to fly. It flew and flew, circled and circled, until it landed on her shoulder. “Why did you leave me?” Rafi asked. The butterfly didn’t answer in words, but made Rafi see a vision in her mind. She saw herself in the recent months reaching out her hand like a machine empty of feeling, without love, without any real wish to connect. She saw how her gift had turned from a blessing into a duty, and how she’d busied herself healing others and forgotten herself. The butterflies hadn’t been coming from her hand — they’d been coming from the overflow of her feelings.
When Rafi’s feelings dried up and she became just a machine for giving, the springs ran dry and the butterflies disappeared. Rafi realised she’d neglected herself. She stopped trying to force the butterflies to come, and decided to enjoy the flowers, to laugh because she was happy — not because she wanted to make someone else happy. And in a moment of honesty with herself, as she stroked the petals of a rose, she felt that old tingle. But this time it was stronger. It wasn’t just a warm tingle — it was like a spark of fire. She opened her palm, and out came a butterfly she’d never seen before, a blend of every colour, glowing with light.
The End
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