I hate to spoil the end of this story, but I meet a superhero at the end.
I’m a caterpillar.
I have a million little legs. The first thing I notice is how skinny these legs are. Then I notice how well they all work together. My ass is still fat, but I’m okay with that because I can move my fat ass so gracefully on a million legs.
I’m doing my caterpillar thing. Just scooting past the base of a tree – in short little fat waves.
There is a voice in the back of my head. It’s very similar to the voice that tells me to reach for chocolate chips cookies after dinner. It’s a quite voice, but it’s a stern tone that you don’t dare ignore.
Instead of demanding cookies, this voice is demanding I go up. “Don’t be on the ground,” it whispers.
So as my human self does on a nightly basis, I listen to the voice and start my slow, fat-wave scoots up the tree.
The sun moves nearly a full inch in the sky before all my skinny legs are clingy to the side of the tree.
I’m looking straight up. I don’t recall ever attempting to travel so far.
I just scoot. After a few inches, I start to find a rhythm. My front legs crawl forward and wait for my back legs to catch up. Once they arrive, I reach my front legs forward again and repeat the process.
I know it’s going to be a long trip, so I should appreciate the journey. I study the leaves as I pass. They all look delicious even in the pale moonlight. I take note of bark growing cold under my skinny legs.
I see Charley having a midnight snack on a particularly large leaf. If the voice wasn’t so stern, I would have stopped to wave.
A few more inches up, I stop.
It’s a fly.
I’ve seen flies in my day, but I have never seen a fly bullied before.
I don’t like flies. They are very rude, and they make so much noise when they move, but I hate to see a fly being treated like this.
The fly is frozen. I’ve used this tactic before to much success.
A long, thin stick is prodding at it’s eye – daring the fly to move.
The fly is still.
Another stick joins the prodding at the other eye.
I admire how still the fly stays. The fly must be really by fucking scared to tolerate that much poking.
The sticks are extending from a pile of beady black eyes resting on top of a small body. The small body is standing tall with even more sticks.
My little caterpillar heart starts to race.
The dreaded Stick Figure, I think to myself. No wonder the fly is so scared.
There was a myth down on the ground that these Stick Figures haunted all creatures, but without ever seeing one, I suspected their outragous acts to be mere myth.
I was wrong. If the legends were correct, this fly would be poisoned, strangled and drained of its life.
Poor fly.
I didn’t want to watch. If I had a neck, I would have turned away. The only way to protect myself from witnessing such a voilent act would be to move my whole body, and then, I could be noticed. The fly was small. The fly would be an appetizer. My fat ass would be the entre.
I watched.
Poke. The end of the stick slowly pushing a dimple in the top of the fly’s eye and pulling away. Poke. Poke. Poke.
The Stick Figer had so much patiences, and with the fly’s life on the line, the Fly did too.
Poke. Poke. Po.
Gone.
The fucking fly was gone. Just as the stick was working another dimple into the fly’s eye, the fly vanished.
I was flabbergasted. The Stick Figer was flabbergasted. The Green Monster dangling from a near bye branch was not flabbergasted.
His branch was shaking. His tongue was cleaning his scaled lips. His stomach was full.
Patience is a virtue.