Metamorphosis, Rebirth
September 8th 2009 06:34
Metamorphosis
It started life as an ugly beetle like bug, it would spend its days going from plant to plant, looking for the one that nourish it so it could grow, so it could find its way out of its current condition. This life was so wrong, it knew it didn't belong as this bug, it knew this but couldn't remember what it was supposed to be but this body was wrong, it felt so confining, so very, very wrong.
One day while moving from one plant to another it saw itself, there was some water at the bottom of a pot that held a plant, it thought might be the right one, the one that would change it, and was appalled, it was ugly, it didn't recognize itself, so very ugly, so wrong, except for the color, the bronze of it's skin, if it was skin reminded it of something, but it wasn't sure of what. If only it could remember.
Seeing it's reflection in the water helped to realize that it was aware of itself, the other bugs around it didn't seem to have that same awareness, it couldn't communicate with them. It looked for a bug that looked as it did but didn't find one. It traveled the garden, how long it took it didn't know but it traveled as far as it could, and then turned around and went back to the other end, again running into a wall of some kind, but it never found one that had the same color, the same structure that it had seen in the water.
It found a plant that went up, and up, and it climbed, it was trying to find a way out of its jail, its prison. It knew it was a prison, it knew that its body was a jail, it had to find its way out of the physical prison of its body and the garden, how it knew that it was a garden it didn't know. Strange, it was able to put together whole thought, ideas, the idea of escape was paramount on its mind, and it was unable to understand how it could put this idea into thought. The bugs it saw around it seemed to be mindless, eating, mating, dying, but it didn't eat mindlessly, it tasted, and rejected, if found no other bugs like it, it avoided the ones that tried to attack it, the spiders, the mantis' all the others that could have done it harm. itIt found was bigger than most of the bugs, most were smaller, some much, it even tried to eat some of them, but they too tasted wrong. If only it could find the taste that would release it.
Time passed, not knowing how long that time was, it didn't know what time was, it was light, it was dark, that was what it knew, that is what its life was, light, dark, plant, bug, flavors, lack of satisfaction, lack of understanding of its state. The drive to find itself, its need to escape, why? It needed to understand why, why was it like this? Why didn't it feel right? Why could it even think? Other bugs didn't think, they didn't look in puddles and recognize themselves, they didn't search for the right food, they didn't try to leave the garden, why did it?
More time, more searching, new plants to taste, it seemed that somehow new plants were always coming up, it traveled back and forth through the garden, going down to the dirt, tasting the new plants as they came up, it even tasted the dirt.
One day, he knew not how much time had pasted, but it knew it was starving, it was dying, it had to find the right food and soon. It couldn't find enough food to keep itself alive. And then a new plant, one it had tasted as it sprouted and rejected, but now it was large, it reached higher than many, high toward the sky, he climbed upward, it had strange round things, it couldn't taste them, its mandibles weren't strong enough to penetrate the round smooth surface, but it climbed and it tasted a leaf, it was right, this was what it had been searching for, it ate, and ate, it stuffed itself, other bugs came and tried to take its food and it fought them off, killed those who wouldn't leave, and it ate. For many lights, through the dark it ate, until one day it stopped. It had eaten so much it couldn't move, it froze in place and attached its front legs to a small branch next to a leaf, one it hadn't eaten.
It just sat there, something was wrong, something was happening, but it didn't know what, its mind wasn't working as it had, its thoughts clouded, it felt the need to sleep. Sleep, a concept it hadn't thought of before, it never had slept, it realized that sleep meant being without consciousness, it was always conscious, it was always aware, but it was losing that, fear struck, it struggled to stop this thing called sleep. It was afraid of losing its awareness of self, of losing its awareness of the world around it even though it wanted out of that world, but as much as it struggled it couldn't stop the overwhelming need to sleep. Slowly it slipped into sleep, into a dreamlessness that allowed its body to change, the change it had felt it needed.
As this change happened a new awareness started to make him aware of his body, but not the body he had had, but a new one, it was somehow familiar, it felt light, comfortable, it felt right! How this body could be hidden inside that repulsive bug, he remembered the state he'd been in and he was appalled at how he'd been, how he'd hunted for food, for an escape from the garden and the body, and most of all he remembered how he'd fought the sleep that was allowing the body he had inhabited to become the body that he should have, and he was amazed, he was about to escape. All he needed was one small thing to get out and be free, free to fly with his sisters and brothers, he searched with his mind, and he found it. A was a small white bug, herded by ants, and he called it, he called it with his mind, and the small white bug, aphid, he remembered, came and it used its sharp mandibles to cut a slit down the back of the body that had help him prisoner for so long, and he was free!
He was free, he spread his wings, letting them absorb the warmth from the light of the sun, he sent his mind call out to his brothers, his sisters, he sent his thoughts out as far as he could, but he heard nothing. He almost panicked, but didn't, he remembered where he was, low down on the plant that had nourished him, enabled him to free himself, and realized he had to be higher.
Could he fly? Not yet, his wings were still cold, his body not yet warmed enough, without the strength the sun would give him, for he was a being of the light and warmth, he climbed higher, avoiding the bugs that thought to attack him, thought he might be food, and climbed to the top of the plant, and again he called, this time with his voice and his mind, his voice,a flute like sound raised on high, he sent his call, and he heard one in return, his brothers and sisters had heard his call, his flute like call summing the swarm, summing the fairies from their groves behind the garden, they came to his mind call and his voice, their Prince had awakened, he had found his way out of the imprisonment imposed by his father, the King.
He'd had to past this test to claim his rightful place in the land of the fairies. For without his ability to transform into the nondescript bronze beetle, and then escape it he wouldn't be able to lead the fairies. The fairies, whose the lives were always in danger from the big ones, the ones that didn't, wouldn't, couldn't, believe in them. They must be able to disguise themselves when lost or alone, and he, the Prince who would inherit the throne must be capable of the escape that would free all of them when they were so disguised.
When they found themselves so captured, so imprisoned as he had been, only his call, as the King would enable them to transform back into their own shapes. Once they had had to become the bronze bug, that is the disguise of the fairies, those without royal blood were unable to escape their captivity as these bugs. Without his ability to free himself all of the fairiedom would forever be locked in the shape of the bug, never being able to be free, never being able to fly with the sun, ride the winds as was their heritage, but he had succeeded, so they would be safe, safe until the next Prince had to prove himself, until they knew if the Prince that followed this one would find his way out of an imposed prison.
The fairies had one thing in common with the bug they became and they came from, they had short lives, they lived but a summer, then they would leave a babe. A single babe each, captive in an egg, an egg that would give birth to a bug, a big bronze bug. And this bronze bug that would have to stuff itself on the right food, but unlike their Prince, they could only be free of this form if called forth by their King, and that King would have to imprison his heir, so that heir could call forth another generation of fairies.
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