fairy tale mediated ego death

in a terrarium for a universe, for the first time in history, a bug felt afraid.

fear was a careful tourist within the glass walls that defined existence here. the vapour on the walls peered to note the uncertain foreigner, finding his footing. he carefully planted his roots into the bug’s slipperiest thoughts, holding its soil together. she didn’t see him come or work. & by the time she did, she was already afraid.

to be afraid, as the water observed, is a debilitating disease. they watched the bug gradually trade the uncertainty of her thoughts for the certainty of fear. the carefree girl that slid over the infant leaves, bent and chipped her fragile toes, tumbling over the aging, eroding rocks, never stopping to tend to her wounds or form, slowly began to watch, slow down, & calculate her scuttle, afraid to fall.

she learnt how to always be upright, & she learnt about gravity. she learned to love some forms in the terrarium, & she learnt to be wary of some others. she befriended the flies that she used to only wave at in passing. she avoided the caves where the algae licked her toes. she also grew a new fondness for other bugs like her.

then, one evening, the water noticed the most extraordinary thing. the water was just begining their routine condensation, after a busy wave of hydrating & diffusing through all the breath of the terrarium, when they saw the bug sitting, in sheer determination, unmoving, on a friction-possessed rock.

& gently, vigorously, a shell erupted out of her soft back.

like eve’s apple in eden, fear was the gift of knowledge. she learnt she was naked. her slimy back, prone to bruises, & shedding, her elbows rubbing up against the edges of existence, all suddenly, seemed- exposed? she learnt she was vulnerable. she learnt she had a life. & she felt alone in a terrarium full of other life that could threaten it. she took charge of her safety.

the shell that she grew through sheer will & fear, grew out over her back, and covered her whole, toes & all. she could stick her toes and mouth out enough to go about her daily movements and feeding. her shell also allowed water to pass through, and so they could still watch her life inside. they saw her learn to paint, cook, & read. & she was pleased in her ability to pass the time in the shadow of her shell.

one day, while cautiously munching on a leaf in the corner of her terrarium that she had begun to call ‘home’, she happened to notice another bug passing by. she thought he was the most beautiful bug she had ever seen. & she really wanted to kiss him. so she softly called to him, & he absent-mindedly tumbled to her. they kissed & she fell in love. so she sat him down & told him about existence, the terrarium, loneliness, & survival.

then, she peeled two thirds of her back off her shell, stretched it out as much as she could, & invited him in. they kissed for so many hours.

she bore a silly, afraid son. & soon the shell learnt to grow. many more bugs learnt about this cult of survival, & they joined her under the shell. fear, as the water observed, was a communicable disease. & these bugs loved to communicate all of a sudden.

water was beginning to find it harder to diffuse through the shell as it grew, dissolving in its layers, as it tried to pass. but the shell kept growing.

soon, the bugs started feeling thirst. & only then they learnt of water, & the water cycle- the lake & the air of the terrarium that held their breaths steady.

molecules helplessly evaporated and rained each day. green photosynthesised absentmindedly, half the process for themselves, & the other half for no one in particular. the flies waved to no one as they passed. only the stubborn presence of the enormous shell was silent in the terrarium. still growing.

the bugs that still remembered how to dig, dug furiously at the ground to make a tunnel to the lake, & water was pulled straight into the shell. they cooked the vapour & let it pass through their skin and wet their organs again.

water suddenly saw nothing else. almost all of them were under the shell. they were confused by their confinement and rapid consumption by bugs that clearly had no conception of how much vapour they really needed.

urine was confused by how much of itself existed all of a sudden, & how it had nowhere to go & how they were allowing it to poison the bugs lives.

vapour that condensed against the glass now condensed against the shell, gradually soaking the entirety of it. the shell grew damper & heavier. the lake was starting to dry & the bugs grew crazier & paranoid.

fear, the rabid virus, rampant in his conquest, thriving in the humid hell.

the drains mulled over the impossibility of life.

loneliness, the water noted, was the promise of identity. & there, fear atacks.

the terrarium was always one, there was no one bug or another, one dead or living, one prey or predator. the drain, vapour, urine, water and ice were one.

if water were afraid to fall, it would never rain.