Sun bounced off morning dew as Casey the caterpillar munched away on her milkweed. Life was easy for Casey, who ate and slept and repeated the process for as long as she could remember. All Casey cared about was that next chomp of sweet green goodness, and she wasn't alone.
Clyde the caterpillar sauntered up on the leaf beside Casey. "Hey," he said between mouthfuls of green.
Casey nodded at him, not wanting to speak with her mouth full. She fancied Clyde's sleek body, and stared in awe as his mandibles masticated fresh vegetation. Watching Clyde eat reminded Casey that she had everything she needed, but not everything she wanted.
"Hi," she croaked. He chuckled and buried his face back into bush. She'd been taking it slow, afraid of scaring Clyde off. They'd chatted over breakfast, lunch and dinner for the past week, but Casey hadn't made any moves besides occasionally returning Clyde's pokes on Facebook. She figured she had all the time in the world, and the world was a big place, so there must be enough time to be timid.
"So I'm thinking of moving," Clyde said after swallowing.
Casey's hearts froze. Was it something she said? Something she hadn't? Casey could hardly remember what she had said, let alone what she hadn't.
"Where?" Casey gasped, failing to keep her composure.
"I don't know," he said, swinging his head around. "But there's something out there."
Casey snorted. "Yeah, and it’ll probably eat you," she explained, remembering the crow incident that annihilated sixty-three of her closest siblings.
"That's not what I meant," he said with a laugh.
"Then what did you mean?"
Clyde shrugged his antennae in the carefree manor that had attracted Casey in the first place. "I wish I could tell you."
"Why can't you?"
"Because nothing's the same to me. I can't explain it to anyone but myself," he said.
"If you can explain it to yourself, you can explain it to me," she said and nuzzled against his body for the first time. It felt warm, and gave just enough. Casey felt Clyde’s breath quicken at first and then slow.
"Never mind, it's silly anyway," Clyde whispered while avoiding her gaze. They finished eating together, and then slept together. It was everything Casey hadn't imagined it would be and more.
In the morning, Clyde was gone, but not lost. Casey wandered around until she spotted him hanging upside down beneath a branch, pulsating in the air. It was kinda hot. When did he learn yoga?
Forgoing their usual pleasantries, Casey crept up and asked him what he was doing.
Clyde shrugged his antennae. "I don't know, I just know that I have to do it, or else."
Casey tried to hide a smile. "Or else what? A boogie man will get you?"
Clyde turned his smile upside down, which still looked like a smile since he himself was upside down. "I told you, I don't know," he barked, shutting Casey up for a few moments. She didn't know what to do, so she just chomped on some nearby bush.
"Don't you want some leaf?" She asked after a while.
"I'm not hungry," Clyde said without looking at her or missing a beat with his throbbing. He wasn't telling her something. He was holding something back.
"How do you know when you're finished with whatever you're doing?"
"I don't."
Casey snorted and nodded. Do all guys go crazy after they sleep with someone? She stared at him some more, but he pretended not to notice.
"About last night," Casey started, which startled Clyde as if he’d forgotten she was there.
"Oh, yeah, last night…" Clyde began and finished.
"It doesn't change anything between us, right?" Casey asked. She hoped it did. She really hoped it did.
"Change what?" Clyde said, finally stopping his palpitations and looking at her with desperate annoyance.
Casey's blood froze for a moment, then erupted in fire.
"Nothing, never mind," she said. Clyde complied while Casey chewed on tasteless leaf and stared at him. He was throbbing even quicker now. There were a million things Casey wanted to say, but she just stuffed more green leaf down her throat.
"You're just trying to drive me away, aren't you?" Casey finally said, gesturing with her eyes and antennae.
"Drive you away?" He asked with hollow eyes. "I don't care where you go, all I know is where I'm going."
"But you don't!" She shouted. It felt good to yell since she had to be heard. "You don't know anything! You don't know what you're doing or why you're doing it," she said, climbing up next to Clyde. "Just stay with me, whatever's going on with you, we can fix it," she said as she tried to nuzzle her antennae against his.
“I don’t need to be fixed," he said, his antennae stiff and cold.
She tried stroking his antennae again. "You don't need to be stubborn. We have so much to explore together, to eat together, why isn't that good enough?"
He continued undulating. Casey had tried to be calm, tried to be sympathetic. Now she had to be real. "I'm sure it's no coincidence that you got what you wanted last night, and now you're pushing me away today."
He stopped throbbing for a second, and Casey thought she heard a sigh. "This has nothing to do with you," he said, trying to calm her down, but accomplishing the exact opposite.
"So I sleep with you and now you're building a wall to keep me out. How can this not be about me?"
"Please, I’m just doing what’s right for me," he said while he started swelling again.
"Just like last night, right? You used me."
"For what?"
"You know exactly what. And now that you got it, you're hoping I go away, right?"
Silence.
"What are you scared of?" Casey asked.
"Nothing. But I've never been more sure about anything than I am now."
"What if you're wrong?"
He recoiled. "Then why would I be doing it?"
"Because you don't know any better."
This stopped him cold. "You aren't listening! Today I woke up with more purpose and drive than I've ever had. I didn't know better yesterday, but today I do."
"I sleep with you and suddenly you know better?"
"That's not what I meant,"
"What did you mean? No, fuck that, what did I mean, to you?"
"Casey, you know you matter."
"Just not enough, right?"
Clyde began throbbing again. "Casey, I don't know what's going to happen, but I don't want to lose you.”
"You don't have to! Please, stay with me. I love you."
"I just need to do this. I wish I could explain it."
Clyde's loosey-goosey logic wasn't cute to Casey anymore. "How do you know you need to do it if you can’t explain it?"
Clyde stopped swelling, finally looking at Casey. "Don't you feel it? The itch of something more inside you? That feeling that you could—that you should—be so much more?”
"Of course, but it's not REAL. If it were real, I'd be able to explain it, to see it, to—"
"Feel it?" Clyde asked.
"Just because you feel it doesn't make it real."
"Why not?"
"Because I can't explain it. And if it can't be explained, it can't be real."
"I don't want to argue."
"You don't want to think." With that, Casey scampered away, feeling like she had finally made an impact. But behind her, Clyde started to surge and swell with renewed vigor. She hadn't made it three inches before he yelled out.
Casey looked back, clueless and without wit. Clyde was shaking, his head bobbing around. "Clyde! I didn't mean that!" Casey shouted as—
—as Clyde's head split in two.
"Clyde!" Casey screamed, scrambling to his side but lost her grip and began falling. Falling. Falling to beneath him on a leaf. She watched from below and blinked as the unthinkable unfolded. Clyde's head had split in two and a shadow was breaking through. His body was still wiggling, the last stand against something holding it back.
A numb terror seized Casey, who could only gape. Whatever was inside was breaking through, and the Clyde Casey loved was being torn apart by some monstrosity pushing its way out. Then emerged a pulsating green blob, and the rest of his skin shriveled up to his farthest feet, cowering and conceding to the new creature.
What was left of Clyde dropped, cast aside, and landed right beside Casey. It was the crumpled skin of who she once knew. Above throbbed a neon green blob, one segment indistinguishable from the other. It's as if everything Clyde had been, everything he was, had been shed off. But what for?
Now Casey was lying beside him, like the night before. She nestled him, but it was cold and ugly, cast away like she had been. Casey looked up and didn't, couldn't, wouldn’t recognize whatever had ripped its way out of Clyde. But the monster kept pulsating, slowing with each terrifying second.
"Clyde?" She whimpered, not knowing who or what to address. Which was the real Clyde? Did she ever even know? The monster which erupted out of him wasn't going anywhere, while Clyde's old persona had nothing to cling to, and Casey wanted to cling to it. It had been tossed away, dropped away, but Casey wouldn't let it be blown away too. She wouldn’t lose him again.
She rubbed against his skin, desperate for some push-back like she felt last night, a night as distant as the moon. Casey's heart jumped when she felt Clyde's skin vibrate, but it was just her own trembling. It lied next to her as she lied next to it.
Casey could keep Clyde's remnant while watching whatever broke out of Clyde. Casey sank her mandibles into the empty skin and began pulling away, using her antennae as pincers to keep his head in place while she drug him out, unraveling the masterpiece she had worshipped so soon ago.
Helpless, Casey reverted to what she knew best, and began chomping away at a leaf next to her and Clyde's remains. Maybe he'd wake up and join her? But he didn't, so Casey repeated the process of dragging and then eating. She wasn’t hungry, she just had nothing else to do. At the end of the day, exhausted, Casey decided to sleep on Clyde rather than let him go. She used her antennae to hold up Clyde’s shell, wiggling her torso under as it naturally fit around her. It wasn’t snug, but it was better than being alone and exposed, and at least this way Casey knew that the Clyde she had left wouldn’t slip away in her sleep like before.
Day in and day out, rain and shine, Casey dragged Clyde's body from leaf to leaf as she waited for something, anything. Meanwhile, Casey wanted snip off Clyde’s killer from the branch, but she couldn't leave what was left of Clyde just to injure whatever had betrayed him. Each day, the hideous seed he'd devolved into turned darker.
Try as she might, Casey couldn't shield Clyde's skin from the elements forever. Little by little, the weather withered his skin, leaving it too limp, too fragile to move. Casey discovered this the hard way when she woke up to find Clyde's skin split down the middle, soaking in the falling rain. Barely blinking awake, Casey reacted with instinct and nothing else. When she scooted over, some of Clyde came with and some of him didn’t. It had torn in half, with Casey pulling the upper most portion while the severed second half lied listless in the rain. Once again, she had pulled too hard too soon.
Nothing was right anymore, and there was no going back. Casey let loose a blood tickling scream, and swiftly tossed herself off the leaf to whatever awaited below. Ages she fell.
Her eyes were closed but she could see her life, starting with her hatching and the devouring of her siblings. After that came the day when Casey first spotted Clyde. He was alone and she couldn't believe her luck; all she could do was ogle his sleek form from a distance. Casey thought Clyde had spotted her watching him. After a sleepless night, Casey mustered the courage to talk to Clyde. Casey tripped over each word, and Clyde smiled at each stumble.
Images shifted and revealed the night they finally came together. The connection that made Casey feel wanted, warm, significant.
Casey opened her eyes, shocked to see the phantom of Clyde's smile replaced with the world rising past her. Down and down Casey fell, passed only by raindrops which fell faster than her towards a ground rising to meet her. Casey felt like she'd always been falling. Hadn’t she always been falling? It was easier this way. Falling was so simple, so free, like she'd always wanted to do it.
Then Casey remembered: she'd tossed herself off from the leaf, to get away from herself. She needed a break, a break from everything, and this wonderful gravity tugged her down, away from her past and toward her future. She wanted to die because she didn't know how to live. Why keep playing if you can never win? But, like usual, Casey wouldn't get what she wanted. Down she plunged. Somehow, the ground reflected her entire body as it came racing up to meet her, and as the two collided, Casey did a face-plant into herself, and herself gave way, only to surround Casey.
***Splash!***
A million needles stung at Casey. She was cold, alone, and overwhelmed with no shelter. Everything was wrong, like falling into a bad dream that she couldn't wake up from. She wasn't supposed to be here, yet here she was. Time slowed to a creep as her feet flailed and her body bobbed. Casey thrashed and floundered, grasping at shapeless matter. The tighter she squeezed the less she had to hold onto. Casey yelled out but was gagged by a cold blanket surrounding, invading her. The only warmth left was Casey's lungs, which burned for what she'd taken for granted moments before.
Water blinded her as she thrashed around, not even able to tell up from down. As she pushed against forces she couldn’t understand, Casey was graced with a moment of clarity: she was helpless, and always had been. Just like she couldn’t have stopped the crow from gobbling up her siblings, and just like she couldn’t control Clyde, Casey was now drowning in spite of all her efforts. The harder she struggled, the deeper she fell. And she was running out of time.
But there’s a freedom in helplessness. So she gave up. For the first time in her life, Casey stopped resisting, stopped trying to control everything. She laid still, waiting, going limp. Just like she had given up and begun falling before, she gave up and began rising now.
When she broke the surface, warmth and light engulfed her senses. She tried opening her eyes, but with water and sun in her eyes, blurry images danced across her vision. She was stable, though, on her back, drifting. Drifting away from where she had fallen in, drifting towards where she might climb out.
A fleck of mud got caught in Casey’s eye, so she dunked her head in the water and shook it to clear the muck out. As she did this, Casey’s wet and shivering body moved a tiny bit away from where she was. She did this again, but this time, she cast her tail out to curve her body in the same direction she turned her head. It worked, and she propelled herself even more this time.
Plunge, swivel, push, forward. Plunge, swivel, push, forward. It was a new dance to her, but one she picked up quickly. Casey didn’t know where she was going, all she knew is that each time she plunged her head into the water and pushed her body out, she moved farther away from where she was and closer to whatever was next. Casey didn’t feel in control, but she was at least doing what was in her control.
Plunge, swivel, push, forward. Plunge, swivel, push, forward. On it went, until after the last dance, when her tiny forward feet felt landfall. Casey grasped at the mud she felt, and dragged herself out of the water before flipping as much of the muck off her body as she could. A gust of wind slammed against a leaf overhead, dumping its stored pool of water onto Casey, washing her clean of what little mud still clung to her.
She opened her eyes.
A bright sun shined down, unremitting in its warmth. It blanketed everything in sight, especially Casey. She saw fog, clouds, moving up to the sky, and all she knew was that she wanted to rise with them. So she climbed the nearest tree trunk, up and up above the first layer of branches, past glistening green leaves, the same leaves she once hungered for but now hardly noticed. She felt herself led to a warm cubby corner where two twigs met.
Casey couldn't stop smiling, and she couldn't recall a time when she didn’t remember this spot. It had always been, as had Casey. Stuff began spilling out of Casey, and she finally found the anchor and solid footing she’d been looking for. Time blurred, and three blinks later, Casey found herself squirming. Everything was right, but her skin felt dirty, itchy. She knew a fresh future was beckoning her, but she was still weighed down by her wet skin, damp with muck. Like a bad memory, it was a relic of the past, and Casey thought she’d be lighter without it. It was time to get out of her head, so she furrowed her way out. Time blurred and swirled around her.
—
When Casey came to, she was surrounded by darkness, so she fell asleep again, embracing the warmth of her cocoon. When she awoke, she couldn't wait to get out. But how? She tried to stand up, but something pushed back against her. What were these? She had new legs on her back, but they weren’t legs. In fact, where were her other legs? She only had four, both much longer and stronger than the many she had before. As for the “legs” on her back, they had weird, firm webbing between them, and holy shit were they strong. She didn't know what she was in, since the darkness stopped her from seeing, but she bet she could break out. In fact, the more she pressed her strange new wings against the inside of the cocoon, the more she felt it give.
Casey didn’t know how long she kept at this, since in the darkness there was no way to measure time, except by change. So she kept at it, flexing her wings as hard and as fast as she could against the prison she held herself in.
She felt breathless but not faint. She remembered everything vaguely; her childhood, meeting Clyde, falling in love, then falling out of life. But those memories were not her anymore. They were a shell of what she had been, and she wanted out. So harder she pressed, with all she could, for as long as she could. She didn’t want to be in the dark anymore. But she couldn’t break free. What she had wrapped herself in was too tight, too strong. She didn’t, she couldn’t, have the strength to break out.
Yes there was simply no other option. She could stay where she was, safe and isolated from the world outside, but then what? She’d slowly wither from the inside, but it was no use pushing out. Exhausted, she gave up and saved her strength. What for, she didn’t know, so she waited.
When she woke up, she was energized. She wanted out, and would make it happen somehow. Again she flung herself at her walls, stretching as far and fast as possible, trying to crack the walls. In fact, the walls seemed to be closing in on her, and she wondered how much air she had left, making her scramble all the more. And scramble she did, pushing and shoving in futility against the wall. She wondered why it was there if it was too strong to let her out? Was this the way she was going to die? Trapped inside something of her own creation?
So she pushed. Again, she felt her strength fleeting from her, fading like a sigh she let out each time she failed. Again and again she tried, and again and again she failed, with nothing to show for it but tired, sore appendages. Would she be trapped in here forever?
She pushed on last time, out of desperation before she collapsed in defeat. She was ready to cry, and felt a drip hit her in her wings.
Then another. And another. She looked up, and from the corner of her eye she saw water dripping in. And if something could get in, then she could get out. Summoning all strength known to her, she pressed once again, this time with the resilience of hope.
A thin gap formed, and the crack was wide enough for a little light to shine through. But that was enough for Casey, who pressed once again, with even more vigor than before. Finally, it broke. It broke. It broke. It broke and her shell peeled away. She felt the cool air rush into her dungeon. She squeezed her wings through the hole, and by pressing down with them against the edges of the shell, she raised herself out of the cocoon, and into the light.
Her eyes, used to the darkness she inhabited for too long, strained to make sense of the blinding imagery around her. Everything that existed, was how it should be.
Just as she was getting her bearings, she lost her balance, and found herself tumbling down. But this time was different. As she fell, she flailed everything she could, as fast as she could, and soon Casey found herself stabilizing, and then rising instead of falling. She looked around to see what was carrying her, but all she could see was the light gleaming off her wings, which were fluttering rapidly.
Now she was her, and now she was hungry.
