There once was a beautiful garden in which grew roses, daisies, marigold, sunflower, and flowers of all possible colours. The garden was colourful, and always fresh in the day’s sunlight, while the fragrant breeze made it as soothing in the night’s darkness.
One day, an ant came to the garden, looking for some nectar.
She spotted a white butterfly on a red rose placed high up on the tallest branch.
The ant needed to tilt her head to speak with the butterfly.
“May I have some of that nectar?” requested the ant.
The butterfly was kind and beautiful, with black dots all over her broad white-wings. She looked at the tiny ant.
“Yes, sure,” she said.
And, she flew down to the ant and gave her a taste of the nectar she had collected.
It was sweeter than anything the ant had tried before. She could not resist asking for more, and more, until she felt too ashamed to ask for another mouthful.
The ant left with the sweet taste in her mouth.
She put nothing else in her mouth, so as not to lose the flavour.
The next day, she returned to the garden, where she found a beautiful orange butterfly extracting nectar from a red flower that wasn’t but a rose.
The flower grew along the grass, on a runner.
“May I have some of that nectar?” requested the ant.
“Yes, sure,” replied the butterfly, handing over some to the ant.
But the nectar didn’t taste sweet; it tasted like water. The ant took a sip and left to find the white butterfly she had met the previous day.
“How come only your nectar tastes sweet?” the ant enquired.
The white butterfly faced the ant, and answered: “My nectar comes from the roses. I brave thorns to get to the flowers.”
“The other butterfly you met today prefers comfort. To avoid the thorns, she is content with the lesser quality nectar, which comes from the flowers growing in the grass. The sweet nectar cannot be achieved without going near the thorns.”
The butterfly asked the ant to choose.
“If you want my sweet nectar, you will have to climb up the thorny stalk of the rose plant. You can have the tasteless other nectar without taking any risks,” she said.
The ant had already made her choice. She put the orange butterfly behind her and braved the thorns to reach the white butterfly.
There, the ant had all the sweet nectar she wanted.
