You’ve heard it from me before…

…wth does the time go?

I do have another Del & Gia story, “Learning Curve,” in the latest issue of Boundary Shock Quarterly. The theme of this issue is “Zeroes and Ones.” AI overlords. Sentient machines. Or, in the case of my story…

…well, you’ll have to read it, though if you’ve read any of the previous stories, you can probably guess.

In other news, I played host several weeks ago to a monarch butterfly chrysalis for the first time I’m aware of. I mean, I do have a number of milkweed plants in my backyard, and have seen caterpillars many times. But then one day they would just vanish—I’ve no idea whether they survived or met the fate of most caterpillars and succumbed to accident, lunch, disease, etc.

I can’t say that this caterpillar picked the best spot to settle in and transform—the chrysalis was attached to the edge of a board on the back of my house, fully exposed to the elements. I worried that a gust of wind would blow it away or some passing bird would pluck it off. But as the days passed, the little sucker persisted, a lovely jade green object with dots of what looked like gold but were really a combined effect of the carotenoids present and the structure of the chrysalis.

 

Finally, one Saturday morning about 10 or so days after I first spotted the chrysalis, I saw that the green had darkened. When I checked the next day, I saw the black and orange of folded wings. I was looking up how to tell when eclosion (the term for hatching) was imminent when I glanced over and saw that damn, I missed the moment. I then hustled to move the new butterfly to firmer footing so its wings could dry out and expand. As its wings spread, I saw it was a he (see the last photo, the little dot on the right hindwing). I kept an eye on him as he dried out, worked his wings, fluttered around the deck railing and various potted plants, then finally took off.

A very cool experience.