ALATES, SWARMERS, REPRODUCTIVES — an extract

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep

Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

I am, only I’m not. I am nothing, I was nothing, I will be nothing. I am almost microscopic. I exist and I breathe through holes in my side: spiracles, I don’t understand how I know this. I don’t understand how I know anything at all, I am so inconsequential I might as well not exist. I know that I am underground but I realise that I don’t know what is aboveground.

You will soon find out.

You will soon find out.

You will soon find out,

A voice of authority; a leader. A Queen? My Queen. I wrench air in and out of my spiracles solely to serve my Queen. I do not see her, in fact I do not really see at all, I sense and I perceive but I do not look and I cannot visualise. I am surrounded by others; they are me and I am them. We pulse and teem collectively, pushing at the boundaries of what it means to exist individually. Without one there would not be another, we are all at the mercy of our oneness. If I do not scurry against the soil then I will be become sunken and he will become sunken and she will become sunken and we will become sunken. MUMMA? There is a change in our morphology today, a change that is brought into being by the passing of seasons, from the heady freshness of spring to the wet humidity of dawning summer. I don’t remember spring, but we remember spring, and I am we. The change is jittering and whirring atop my exoskeleton, an unignorable sense of purpose and longing; a desire to be free.

BE FREE.

BE FREE.

BE FREE.

We surge. Scraping, forcing, pushing, fighting the yielding earth with liquorice stick legs and L-shaped feelers. Who am I? How did I come to be? Where am I going? I HAD MY BUMBLEBEE WITH ME.  What have I done? What am I doing? These thoughts flicker and fade and trick me into thinking they were never there at all. Another thought prevails:

FLY.

FLY.

FLY.

Our gauzy whirligig wings spring to attention, spreading eagerly and vibrating with a low steady hum. Light pours in through separations in the soil, this is our signal we are almost ready to leave. We wait for our Queen to set us free, to relinquish our togetherness, to give the final order:

NOW.

NOW.

NOW.

The earth explodes and we rape the skies, assaulting the air with the sheer number of us. Our nuptial flight. Spindly bodies taking off, we lose all notion of collectiveness, each insect for itself, we billow and puff like clouds of dust. We scatter and reform creating swirling black tornadoes of fevered freedom. I am weaving through my former colony and countless other colonies who have also considered this to be the perfect day to emerge from their nests. IT WAS RAINING. I am tight and compact and the rush of air makes me giddy. There is another change today and it pulls at my body and twitches my antennae. Attraction. It courses through me in powerful waves. I judder with anticipatory glee. I sense it, a great natural breeding post somewhere to my left, oozing with delicious pheromones. I drift toward the scent, bobbing up and sailing down to avoid collision. The others seem to understand my direction, they want me to get there, they know how important I am. 

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

PLEASE, PLEASE, SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING, THAT’S MY BABY, THAT’S MY BABY.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

I settle on the scaled surface of the tree and wait. I secrete scents that render me irresistible. There are so many suitors begging me to take to the skies, they come from foreign colonies and they feel different, they smell different. These drones scuttle about with tip-tapping legs; they crawl over my body. One takes more care, we touch feelers and he mounts me, clicking dirtily into position. We whir into action, my front legs tilting upward to worship the clouds, my forewings and hindwings beating out of time, struggling to raise my penetrated body into the big blue. His wings are whirring too. I hear his singular thought:

IMPREGNATE.

IMPREGNATE.

IMPREGNATE.

Is there a life beyond this purpose? I do not know. All I can remember is swarming through soil and bursting free, leading me to this conjoined flight. I cannot decipher where my mate ends and where I begin, we are one exoskeleton, bound together to create multiplication and duplication. He pummels me mercilessly as we soar amongst the surge in our reproductive entanglement. Flying sperm. That’s all he amounts to. When he quickly judders to a wet halt, I know where to put his juice. I let it slide deep inside, into my spermatheca. A secret vault that I can lock from the inside so that only I am able to access it. I have barely steadied myself in mid-air before a second drone mounts me; he latches on and jackhammers. I feel others surrounding me, circling my space, making sure I can’t land. No place to hide on a day like today when the skies are black with buzzing invertebrate bodies. My kin won’t let me rest; I have a job to do. He, too, hastily deposits before releasing me. I LET GO OF HER HAND FOR ONLY A MINUTE. Then comes another. I milk him dry too. I have thoughts, I can feel, but these swains are no more than lazily constructed aerial vehicles, Unmanned, ungoverned and fuelled by the sole purpose of mass population. I allow them to fill me up. I welcome it. I want my offspring to be strong, I can’t ensure that alone.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

WE’RE LOSING HER. WE’RE GOING TO LOSE HER. DON’T LOSE HER, DON’T YOU DARE LOSE HER.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.  

The blue beyond the black crowd is turning a deep shade of violet. Dusk hangs around our collective, the wind brings the dark clouds and together they whisper of the end times. A warning for us to land, to find shelter and rest. The last drone detaches and I beat my wings violently, dropping and hovering to stretch my tired body. The hoards are scattering frantically, they part and disappear as I soar through, struggling to keep my sperm-swollen abdomen aloft. I am struck and sent spinning by the merest hint of a droplet. Rainfall. It hits hard and fast, soaking wings into filmy pulp, forcing my brothers careening back into the soil to decompose with the earthworms. I am hyperaware, one misjudged turn and I could be sent back to the dirt from whence I came, killing my children before they are lain. A shadow passes over me and I cringe away, frightened of glass eyes, thick feathers and serrated beaks. It does not see me, I stay hidden beneath its wingspan, floating warily downwards. I am smart, smarter than this avian enemy and I drift lower to pass below blades of grass, settling neatly under tufts of overhanging weeds. I am safe.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I’VE GOT YOU, I’M HERE MY GIRL. MUMMA’S HERE, MUMMA’S- WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I CAN’T LEAVE HER, I WON’T LEAVE HER, YOU CAN’T MAKE ME LEAVE HER.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

Two fat crystalline bugs gorge on the bubbling body of a live snail. Their mouth parts twitch with foam. I can hear the snail dying inside my head, its predators see me and freeze. They stand back from their meal: an offer to share. I click my mandibles in polite declination. I must work. I cannot fill my belly until I birth my brood. I WAS CHASING A BUTTERFLY, SO PRETTY, IT LOOKED LIKE AN ANGEL. My wings will get in the way. I tear at them, shattering their delicate beauty and chewing them into glinting shreds of paper. I rip the roots from my thoracic cavity; I am flightless now. I start to burrow. Caressing the moist earth with eager antennae, diving face first, using black ink legs to tear my way deep, deeper and deepest. It is warm and familiar underground, but this time I am without my brothers and sisters. I must make my own colony. I COULDN’T SEE IT COMING. I DID HEAR IT THOUGH. I am ready for my children. I have taken my nuptial flight. I have swarmed the skies. I have given my virginity to my brothers. I have watched them die. I have survived. I have taken my own wings and destroyed them. I have dug my own chambers. I reach deep into my abdomen; I find the hidden key and turn it. I begin fertilisation. I am Queen, dizzy with joy, waiting to expel my first eggs-

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

“Annie, Annie can you hear me? Can you move your finger if you can hear me, sweetheart?” I blink wearily, a white haze wobbles and shifts, mutating into white walls, white sheets and a small group of people standing over me with masks and strange tools and worry woven into their brows. I’m not sure who I am. I’m not sure where I am. I’m not sure what I am. I am displaced from any sense of person. I merely exist in front of these concerned faces as a sort of spectator sport. I can hear somebody screaming.

“ANNIE, OH MY GOD ANNIE, MY BABY, MY BABY…” Another face pops up directly over me – eyes overflowing, nose streaming, cheeks blotchy – and I feel skin on my skin. The space comes further into focus and I spot a chair in the corner with balloons and stuffed toys. My stuffed toy, my bumblebee sits between two bears holding GET WELL SOON hearts. I am Annie. Yes, that’s right, I’m Annie. I am aged 6 but my mind seems older today. I have a bumblebee and a mother. She is the crying lady and she loves me very much. The others are doctors, I am in the hospital. I’m hurt, I must be very hurt because there are quite a few doctors and the room is hushed, aside from the steady BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, of the machine to my left. My lips are cracked and my mouth feels like its stuffed with paper.

“Hi Mumma.” I croak and her floodgates open once more. The doctors are fussing about, checking me, fiddling with more machines, they won’t stop. “I feel something Mumma, I went somewhere, I can’t remember.”

She presses her fists to her eyes to catch the tears and takes a deep breath. “You did go for a minute, baby. You left us, I thought you weren’t coming back.” I try to swallow but it sticks in my throat and I cough instead.

“I came back though, wherever I went, I did come back, I-” A little pinprick of black catches my eye on the white hospital gown. A crawling creature, scuttling back and forth, its antennae twitching gently as it journeys further down my body, exploring the goose pimples that have crept to the surface of my skin. My eyes bug, my jaw drops open and my fingers clutch at the sheets. I scream, and I scream, and I scream. I remember where I have been, what I have done, what I have seen. I remember what happens when you shut your eyes for the final time.