As The Wheel Turns

--- 1 ---

An innocuous black pebble lying in the middle of the wilderness, still... deceptively still, as if devoid of any life. Life... suddenly stirs within. A barely discernable wobble, and then another. For a few moments the forest seems to go still and silent, life is stirring. A tiny crack appears, and then another. Soon the cracks fan out and the shell falls apart, but something's amiss. Forest holds its breath as a miracle unsheathes itself. Four wings unfold in all their majesty as the young one stretches its limbs. The moist wings catch a passing ray of sunlight as a young heart pumps blood to the tip of its veins. A myriad conflux of colors paints the ground beneath its wings. The young one tries to fan them, but fails. The forest finally exhales. Life resumes. The young one is hungry, but waits for wings to dry and be strong enough to fly. For now the young one must wait, and pray, for there is always a predator lurking nearby, in hunt for an easy prey. Fear, feeds a wave of strength, and chill. The young one looks up at the sun, trying to catch more of its warmth. It flaps it wings, once, twice, faster and faster. And soon the young one takes to air for the first time. Every beat of its wings fills it with boundless joy. It surveys the world below. Sun reflects of a pond, shimmering with every single ripple. A spot of bright pink invites the young one into its embrace. Hunger, more than beauty, compels the young one to descend into the comfort of the flower. It takes a deep breath of its fragrance as it rests on the edge of the outer petal, and prepares to descend. And suddenly the world goes dark.

--- 2 ---

The young one, perched comfortably on a hyacinth, rolls its tongue over in its mouth, savoring the taste as a small tuft of color sticking out of its mouth. As it swallows the last visible sign of its prey, it stares across the pond. A multitude of its own almost-mirror-images in varying sizes and shapes that consume his attention. It draws its knees closer to its face and then leaps. For a moment, it feels as if it’s flying, its tiny hands clenched in a fist and long legs stretching to maximum. And then it lands on a lotus leaf. Its heart beats a little faster as it takes another leap towards edge of the pond. It turns back to take another look at its kin, content in the pond and all that it offers, mosquitoes and small dragonflies. A fast diminishing clan falling prey to an unknown predator, yet reluctant to leave the safe haven. For it is the only world they has ever known. And then it turns to look what lies ahead of it. The edge of the pond, world beyond and one final leap. It wonders what is the myth, the world beyond the pond, or the fears that lurk within it. The final conflict, before the final leap. And just then, its eyes catch a myriad conflux of colors in the distance with broken remnants of empty cocoons scattered on the ground. The young one smiles as its stomach croaks louder than its throat ever has, as the taste of its last meal is reborn for a fleeting moment. And then it takes the final plunge. A big leap of the predator, a small step towards its preys. The young one crawls, slowly forward, as not to alert the unsuspecting prey. Cautious indeed, for in the world beyond the pond, there is always a predator lurking nearby, in hunt for an easy prey. A bright yellow wing stirs. The young one smiles and goes very still. Just then a cognitive chill runs down its spine and the young one freezes in its tracks, but not out of fear. And gradually, its world goes dark.

--- 3 ---

From a distance it looks like a frog buried upto its stomach in the ground. But then its forearms too disappear and all that is visible is its face, with a strange expression of fearless terror frozen forever, trapped in a prison of venomous fangs. The old one opens its mouth wider and takes the final gulp before its jaws snap shut. It smiles with contentment as it pushes the young prey down towards its famished intestine. A prayer of thanks fills its eyes as it looks heavenwards, towards the pond, the moth colony and then the sun. It takes a deep breath as the small prey comes to rest and the slow process of digestion begins. Just then a patch of cloud covers the sun. The old one sighs and starts to crawl away from the shadow, chasing the sun, ever so slowly. It thinks about its final days, and how it won't have to go hungry again, now that it has found a new perennial food source and no competitors to fight with. Or so it thought. It had hardly closed its eyes to begin its 30 hour hibernation when it felt tremors in the ground, soft but heavy. Panic gripped the old one as it tried to run, but in its final days even a young frog was too heavy a meal to let it escape easily. The old one prepared to regurgitate its meal, but it had only reached the base of its jaw when a heavy blow fell on its head and the world spun into darkness.

--- 4 ---

He keeps the inverted hook shape end of the crooked branch firmly planted on the head of the curly mass of flesh. He was afraid he might have hit too hard, but not. He loosens the hold ever so lightly as he just manages to notice the tiny yellow and green paw sticking out from its jaw. He smiles to himself as suddenly the reason for the weirdly shaped bump becomes clear, an interesting co-incidence. He waits till the young frog is lying on its back, frozen rigid, not sure if by fear or venom. Straightaway he scoops the by now still snake, too tired to escape, into the backpack and seals it tight shut. His dirt brown suede shoes turn around when a thought crosses his mind. He picks up the frog, definite marks of the fangs on its back. He lets out a grunt, almost a scream, and jumps back reflexively as the frog twitches in his palm. He stares at the frog for a few minutes, wondering if it was something he just imagined, if it was just a case of nerves. He decides to let the frog go, checks the backpack... just to be sure and starts walking back towards his camp, going through the plan in his head for the umpteenth time. As he walks, sun goes lower and lower in the western sky behind him, painting the forest in a bloody red glow. By the time he reaches the camp, Venus is not alone in the skies anymore. First thing he notices is the smell of pepper salt and frogs' innards boiling in the kettle. Frog stew, again. As if catching the smell in its tongue, the old snake in the backpack stirs restlessly. He wishes he had taken the frog and let the snake go, would have been much easier and simpler. But then, he convinces himself with the argument that frog may not be having enough venom in it if it was still alive. But was it? Rigor mortis? Anyhow, too late for that. He looks around; she is nowhere to be found. He goes into the tent, keeps the backpack somewhere it can be easily found and turns, suddenly. Foot steps. He feels an all too familiar feeling crawl up his spine. He holds the crooked branch tightly in his hand, cautiously treading out of the tent. Very cautiously, he casts aside the flap covering entrance a little and pokes his head out. A moment later he is lying on ground, face covered in his own blood, sky turning a darker shade of red with every passing moment.

--- 5 ---

She watches as the blood pools around his head, a dark halo, his face twitches and any attempt to talk only makes him spout even more blood all over his face. She goes down on one knee, runs her hand through his blood soaked hair, then face, singing a silent lullaby. A few indistinguishable words manage to escape his throat. Smile changes to frown and she plunges the corkscrew right into his thyroid. Then she starts searching his pockets, nothing. She stands up, biting her nails, eyes maniacally pacing around, but never losing sight of his stare, dead stare. She throws her scarf over his face, unnerved by his stare which seems to mock her even in death. She walks over to the check the pot boiling over fire, the stew is almost ready. She feels a pang of hunger and wonders if there are any frog legs leftover. Frog legs. She slaps her forehead with sudden realization. She looks around, but can't find it. She scampers over to the tent, almost tearing the flap down. And there it is, lying on the ground. She checks the front pocket of the backpack, a couple of dead frogs, stabbed right through the middle. She keeps them aside, last time she'll be eating frogs now. She picks up the backpack, it is heavy. Could it be? She opens it up and peeks inside, too dark to see. She holds the bag in her left hand and shoves the right one inside, fishing for _it_ and finds _it_. Her fingers clench around it, but there is something else too, she feels it stirring against her wrist. Few moments later she lets out a terrible scream of pain. She pulls out her hand and the moment she sees the old snake hanging on to her wrist by its fangs, fear finds its way into her scream. She shakes it off and runs, but stumbles. She tires to hand on to the fragile tent for support, it collapses down on her. She tries to crawl, and with each laborious step, world goes a shade darker. And soon it’s all dark.

---*---

A tired old snake crawls over a rotting corpse, then another. A small white egg, one of the hundreds, stirs slowly. Soon it is joined by many others as small white larvae, almost translucent, break free. They all join other worms, maggots and larvae of all sorts in the unexpected feast, a whole new habitat. A dark red caterpillar, almost the color of ebony, crawls away from the wide open stomach of one of the corpses. It makes its way across the blood laden soil, leaving a small trail behind. With every passing moment, it gets slower and slower. It finally finds a tree and crawls up to finally come to rest on underside of a branch. Tired, it prepares for its long rest and starts to weave its home for next few weeks. Incapacitated inside the dark red shell, the chrysalis, the caterpillar awaits its end, while a butterfly awaits its beginning. It awaits and prays that it may not fall, and if it does, any passerby may mistake it for a pebble or a rock. Yeah, pray it does for its all it can do.

There is always a predator lurking nearby, in hunt for an easy prey.