Artist's rendering of the horrid bugLittle is known about this elusive creature. The only real reference to its existence was in Philip Merilees seminal 1972 work Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas. In it he posited the existence of a terrible nightmare monarch, hurling twisters into the American heartland with every cruel beat of its furious wings. After he published the article, he was torn to shreds by a category F5 tornado while speaking onstage at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“I was a warning to us all,” remarked Dr. Samuel J. Grundlefeather, author, crank, and chaos mathematician. “I remember sitting there watching as this tornado was seemingly conjured from out of nothing, striking only the four foot radius around the podium Merilees was standing at. He was torn asunder and his overhead slides rendered bent, bloodstained, and unreadable. We knew what it meant. That horrid little bug didn’t want anyone looking into its activities. Fear of its wrath drove us underground, where we've been conducting our research in secret. But we persevered and pushed forward until we discovered the butterfly's weaknesses and location. Now we finally have the knowledge and skills to kill this beast, ending this madness once and for all.”
The hardest part of the mission will be tracking and pinpointing of the creature. Going off Merilees work, the team knew to start in South America. The legends of the local tribes claim the butterfly resides in the deepest, darkest reaches of the Amazon. They call it the Demônio Rei Borboleta, and both worship and fear its curious power over the earth. For the trek into the largest rainforest in the world, the team will rely not on the assistance of local tribes, but in the skills of the world’s foremost tracker and collector of butterflies and moths: Ferdinand Heinrich Hermann Strecker III, scourge of Class: Insecta, Order: Lepidoptera.
“My family, we know how to deal with these winged pupal freaks,” he said through a translator. “For thirty generations the Streckers have stalked, captured and pinned these filthy flying maggots into charming, yet kitschy little display boxes. If it crawled out of a chrysalis sack with wings, my family nailed it to a wall. I consider this the ultimate honor and I am glad that I have been charged with stopping this so-called chaos butterfly from corrupting the world financial markets with credit swaps and loans to minorities.”
When asked how he would be able to identify a butterfly no one has lived to describe he only had this to say. “They say that this bug has the face of the devil himself on its wings. Plus it’s not like we’re going to be careful about what we kill. We have some of the best and most destructive weaponry on earth. We’re going to kill everything there. Butterflies, pygmies, tigers, wookies, pumas, monkeys, frogs, crystal skulled aliens, trees, lizards, and butterflies. Nothing is going to get out alive, I promised the IMF that.”
That much is true, as Strecker and his team will be outfitted with the world's most advanced weaponry: Uranium depleted shells, tow missiles, surface-to-moth missiles, advanced machine guns, fake flowers, poisoned nectar, and those blue glowing lantern style bug zappers. Still, some are worried that this dangerous mission won’t solve the financial crisis already underway.
“Look, how do we even know this butterfly controls the financial and credit markets?” asked John Fabin, shrill economist. “Every mention of this so-called death dealer is related to weather. From tornadoes to hurricanes to that rash of groin-based lightning strikes at the annual Butterfly Collector Convention in ’82, it’s all weather based. Maybe we’re looking for the wrong animal. Maybe there’s a gopher, moose, or shifty-eyed dog that’s controlling the world economy.”
“Maybe people ought to give more credence to that theory about the seven Jewish bankers ruling the world economy from their base six miles under Zurich. Or maybe, and here’s a radical idea, the crisis has been caused by the fundamental greed and crooked dealing by idiots who head large corporations. Credit swaps? We actually going to blame that on butterfly? Maybe the solution is more regulation, better oversight, and the public hanging of a random selection of CEO’s. Maybe we shouldn’t destroy half the rainforest to kill the chaos butterfly; maybe our financial system shouldn’t resemble a free-for-all at a roulette table.”
But Mr. Fabin’s deranged socialist ravings were laughed off just as quickly as they were suggested. Of course a butterfly is responsible, and this combined with the Paulson-Bernanke rocket jump next week should permanently fix the world economy and prevent anything bad from ever happening again. Though if the butterfly survives the assassination attempt, much of the American heartland and Central Europe is expected to be destroyed in a colossal retaliatory tornado.
“Oh yeah, we might be stirring up a hornet’s nest, to mix insect metaphors,” concluded Dr. Grundlefeather. “But what other recourse do we have? Blaming it on some goat? Reforming our financial systems? Now who’s being silly?”
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