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Friday, October 15, 2021

“I saw a snake butterfly!” shrieks Sifu Sabrina, splashing water with her feet

 


“There! On that rock!” Sifu Sabrina runs her hands through her hair. “It’s a snake butterfly!” Her curves are as dangerous as a mountain road, and have elicited a few wolf whistles from picnickers.

I swing my gaze from Sifu Sabrina’s face to the algae-covered round rock indicated by her. “Nope, there’s nothing there.” I toss my attention back to her.  


Sifu Sabrina and I are at Kanching Waterfall, located near Templer’s Park, KL. A canopy of branches hunker over us—a tapestry of green leaves and shafts of sunshine—and birds occasionally ululate to the murmur of gliding waters over rocks and pebbles. 

“Up! Up!” Sifu Sabrina raises both her slender arms and arches her eyebrows.  “It’s flown up to that branch!”

 


I snap my head up, creaking my neck bones, and squint my eyes. “Yes, yes, I see it!” 

 


Moving to dry ground, I extract my cell phone from my back jeans pocket and do a search for snake butterfly. “It’s not a butterfly but an Atlas moth,” I say to Sifu Sabrina, reading from a website.  “Oh my goodness, they’ve a life span of only two weeks.”  I give my head a few gentle shakes. “No wonder, it’s so hard to spot them.”

Hmm…why can’t God give these beautiful creatures a longer life span?

/end


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