Save the Butterfly

1 - Memories

The traffic light turned red, and the moment I stopped my car, a big butterfly settled on its bonnet. In natural grace, the fragile animal opened and closed its wings. Their yellow, black and blue pattern was topped off by two big red points. The latter blended perfectly with the car's colour. Quickly, I checked my surroundings, not surprised I stood right in front of the new university wing, the one installed in the old factory.

On this sunny spring day, a motley group of students cluttered the front stairs, chatting or concentrated on the screens of their smartphones. My gaze wandered up to the multi-gabled roof of the renovated building and back to the butterfly. It basked in the sunlight, wings spread wide, and carried my mind back to times long gone.

The impatient honk of the car behind me tore me out of my reverie. The lights had changed, and I held up traffic. But I couldn't risk to hurt the butterfly! Stressed, I glanced back at my car's bonnet, ready to get out and save my vulnerable guest. It was already gone.
Lost in thought, I restarted my car and left the crossing and university behind. This building and butterflies hold a special place in my life.

None of today's students remember the time the busy university wing was a famous chocolate factory. In the halls where they pursue their dreams of a successful future, the conveyor belts of the production lines rolled day and night, only a few decades ago.
In these halls, I had one of the most disturbing, but also formative, experiences of my youth.

~

During my own student days, I worked in the chocolate factory. It wasn't skilled labour but a job to earn my keep. In my time you needed either rich parents, a good sponsor, or a lot of dedication and frugality to finance university tuition. As a young, independent woman I fell into the third category.

I worked the night shift to be free to attend courses during the day. Night shift meant exactly what the name implies. It was more expensive to stop production lines than pay three shifts of female line workers. Wages weren't glorious, but four or five nights a week sustained me. My shift started at eight and ended at four in the morning. Around midnight, workers were allowed a break and shifted to another station in a rolling system. It ensured the line remained unbroken, and box after box of chocolates ended on the transport trolleys.

We all had our preferences for certain jobs over others. Overseers frowned upon job trading though. I'd ended on their bad side when they realised I was a law student instead of another futureless young factory woman. In consequence, I kept to my schedule and did whatever I was told.

Like everyone else, I favoured the shift at the line's tail end. There, you checked for the correct wrapping of the finished products. Part of the attraction of this post lay in the fact face masks and gloves were not mandatory. Also, the sickening, sweet smell was less intense, so far from the conches: big containers the chocolate mass was kneaded in for days to smoothen it. As much as I initially liked the aroma of chocolate, after my first week at the line, I couldn't stand to eat a single piece. I only redeveloped a taste for it years after I quit the job for good.

The assault on my olfactory sense might have triggered my hatred for the job at the line's head supervising the moulding. Besides, the production line for filled chocolates failed time and again. On my first day, I made the mistake of eating a handful of faulty half-products. I became sick after half the shift.

With time, I grew resilient, and my nose didn't register the predominant sweet scent anymore.
However, I still hated this particular job. The conches were kept at sweltering temperatures up to fifty degrees centigrade. Despite their nearness, I often caught myself shivering from cold. In addition, misfortunes accumulated every time I worked this station. Nothing grave, just stupid things. I'd slip on the floor without reason, trip over my own feet or drop a faulty chocolate into rows of perfect ones, destroying them in the process. In short, I felt clumsy and incompetent on this specific task.

After a remarkable series of little accidents, I lamented my misfortune in the coffee break room. I should have known better. Instead of sympathy, some coworkers offered mockery and gloat. Later, while walking back to my station, a quiet, grizzled woman took my elbow. Her name was Martha, and she was one of the eldest. It was whispered she worked the line from the beginning and remembered even the days before the introduction of automated production.