That Little Pillar

I had come back home after dropping the boy off at school. As per the usual, I couldn’t think of anything to do. So I stood there just staring out the window. It’s not that I had any reason to be staring out the window, it’s just what I like to do some days to pass the time.

I thought that sooner or later, if I sat there staring long enough, I might think of something to do.

Out of all the many things to stare at, the one thing I liked to stare at the most was a tree in the garden. It had grown to be my favorite over the years. It was planted by a child many years ago I assumed, so I liked to watch it grow. I thought of it as an old friend. I spoke with it all the time in my head.

This day too, I guess I would talk to the tree—who knows about what.

I suppose that soon we will find out. I don’t know how long I stood there. Time had escaped me altogether, as it often slips away when staring upside down at that tree. It was afternoon before I knew it.

Then, out of absolutely nowhere, I heard a sound. It echoed from somewhere far away—a funny, muffled sort of rubbing sound.

At first inkling I thought it was coming from a place deep inside of me, that I was hearing things—a warning from the dark cocoon my body was spinning from deep within. I took a deep breath, held it and listened.

Yes. There was no doubt about it.

Little by little, the sound was moving closer to me.

What was it?

I had no idea. But it was making my skin tingle.

The ground below the trunk of the tree began to bulge upward as if some viscous, heavy honey were rising to the surface.

Again, I had to catch my breath by breathing deep.

Then the ground cracked open and mounds of earth crumbled away to reveal a set of sharp claw like legs. There were too many to count. My eyes locked onto them, my hands clenched into fists.

Something is definitely going to happen today,

It’s happening now.

The legs clawed hard at the soil, and soon the crack in the earth was a wide open hole, from which crawled out that little pillar.

Its body was covered with shiny green scales, imaginal discs if you wish to imagine.

As it emerged from the hole, it shook itself until the loose soil that clung to it fell away. It had a long, funny looking shape, and it was green in color, which gradually deepened at each end of its cylindrical body. Each end narrowed and swayed with each little movement it made.

But this little creature's eyes were identical to a human's. The sight of them sent a shiver through me. These eyes though, they shared feelings, just like yours or mine would.

Without any hesitation, but moving so deliberate and slow, the little creature approached my front door, on which it began to knock with the slender tip of its nose.

The deep, hollow sound echoed through the house. I tiptoed into the other room—my office—hoping the creature would not realize I was there, let alone scared as all hell.

It was of no use to yell. There was no one around to hear me. It was just me and this somewhat scary little thing. I couldn’t run out the back door either, since my house has but only one way in and one way out, that being the front door. The very one on which that little creature was knocking. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was stuck.

I breathed as quiet as I could, pretending not to be there, hoping the damn thing would give up and move along its merry way. But it wasn’t giving up. Its nose went from knocking to fidgeting with the lock. It seemed to have zero trouble switching the lock open, and the door itself swung slightly open with a creak.

Around the edge of the door wrapped its head, and then it just stopped and stared for a long time—an eternity it felt like to be exact—it stood so still, like a little garden snake with its head raised, looking up and down, and over the conditions in the house. If I had known this was going to happen like this, I would have hid my ass behind the door and slammed it shut, cutting that little pillar in half.

No sooner had such a thought left my head than the creature slithered past the edge of the door, smiling almost, as if it had read my mind.

Then it spoke, not necessarily with a stutter, but repeating certain phrases as if it were trying to learn how to get its point across with words.

"It wouldn’t have done you any good, any good wouldn’t it have done you,” the creature said. “Me and my body are regenerative, we regenerate. I always grows back—stronger and longer, longer and stronger. You’d get the opposite of what you want to accomplish, to accomplish what you want.”

Then it spun it's eyes around and around for a while, like two little perpetual hypnotizing mirrors.

Oh shit, I thought.

Can it read my mind? I’d hate to have anything know what I’m thinking—especially when that something is a horrid and inscrutable little creature like this. I broke out in a cold sweat from head to toe.

What did this creature want with me? Did I look like a bunch of little leaves that it wished to eat? Or did it want to take me down into the depths of the hell below from which it crawled to slowly decay away with the humus of a long lost wilderness?

Oh well I thought to myself, at least it wasn’t so grotesque that I couldn’t stand to look at it anymore. It was actually kind of cute, and beginning to grow on me.

That was a plus.

It had slender, twig looking legs, jutting out from its cylinder of a body. They were somewhat darling, the longer I looked at them moving in slow motion. And I could see, too now, that this little creature meant me no harm.

"Of course not,” it said to me, cocking its head with a couple of clicks.

Its scales clicked against each other with a unique rhythm—like the crescendo of a woodpecker relentlessly pecking at a tree—as it inched ever so slowly towards me.

"What a terrible thought sir: of course I would never eat you. Oh no, no oh. I only like to eat leaves and things like leaves. Oh no, no oh. I mean you no harm, no harm do I mean you at all.”

See I was right: the damn knew exactly what I was thinking.

“Sir, don’t you see? Can’t you see? I’ve come all this way with a proposal for you. From deep deep down, down and deep. I had to crawl all the way up here, crawl up here I had to. Up those stairs and everything. Awful how awfully exhausting it was. It took forever to get here. My whole life actually. Days on end, I had to dig and then dig some more only to crawl. Look at how it ruined my poor little legs, they’re starting to fall off. I’m so tired now. I would’ve never crawled this far if I meant you any harm.

I love it here. I knew I would.

It’s warm and I didn’t want want to crawl anymore than I had too. But I had to crawl my way up to you. I had to, this I had to do.

They tried to stop me, the others, but I couldn’t take them anymore, I had had it with their agonistic gluttony, and gluttonous agony. And think of the courage that took, to do that, please, could you?

Would you think it was rude and presumptuous, for a thing like me to ask you for a warm place to rest my dying legs, this is my proposal. I can’t give anything in return that you don’t already have. This is my only proposal to you, I need a place to fly.”

But it is rude and presumptuous, I said in my mind. How rude a little creature you are, coming to scare the shit out of me and then asking for my warmth and hospitality to help you die in peace.

How do I know this isn’t some kind of trick?

And once I fall asleep you’ll eat me, or worse, take me with you to bury me in the hell below this earth.

A look of gloom and despair washed over the thing’s face as soon as I thought such things. It’s scales took on a purple tinge, then a reddish tinge, as if to express what it was feeling. It’s entire body seemed to shrivel up too.

I folded my arms across my chests and watched as these changes slowly occurred. Maybe these things happened when its feelings were altered, albeit morphed.

And maybe, such a scary looking exterior masked a heart that was as soft and vulnerable as a ripe marshmallow.

If so; I knew I was safe.

But still I was scared as hell. It knew what I thought. I couldn’t have that. I knew this little pillar meant me no harm. So I decided I should give it a try.

You are a terrifying little thing, you know. I shouted in my mind’s most vibrating voice—so vibrating it made my soul reverberate. You are terrifying, cute but absolutely terrifying. The purple hue upon its scales grew a deeper shade of violet. The creature’s eyes began to bulge as if they were about to implode from all the aggravation I was projecting upon them. They protruded from the creature’s face like ripe little figs. Tears of bloody hell trickled down from them, oozing all over the ground around me.

I wasn’t afraid of the little creature anymore. I painted a picture in my mind of all the things I wanted to do to it to ease its agony and pain. I hung it upside down and spun it all around. I wrapped it with thick weblike wires, and slowly pulled its legs out one by one. With each new tortured thought I imagined for it, the creature would lurch and writhe and wail in agony as if I were actually healing it. It started to weep such colorful tears of joyful pain and out oozed these thick gobs of honey like liquid, emitting a amber vapor from its perpetually spinning eye that had the fragrance of a few fresh picked flowers.

It's eye spun a glare of reproach at me.

"Please, oh please, I beg of you, don't hurt me anymore than you have to!” it cried, I am meant to die like this. I would never harm you, I’m just exhausted from crawling and wish to rest, and so that when I die, might I finally fly. All I feel for you kind sir is warmth and love."

I tried to listen. In my mind, I thought don't sound so ridiculous by acting innocent.

You crawled from out of that hole beneath my favorite tree in the garden. You unlocked my door and crawled into my home without my permission. I never asked you here. It is my God given right to think whatever I want. And I’ll continue to do exactly that. I tormented it however I could think of. I spun a web of tough love around it with the intention of suffocating it. I overlooked no method of my own madness that may exist to heal this poor thing, this living being, and make it finally go away.

See you scary little thing, you have no idea what man is capable of. There’s no end to the number of ways a man will think up to inflict love upon you. Man is a horrendous beast himself, but some men do mean well.

Soon the cute little creatures outlines began to fade into a softness unlike any I had ever seen. Even it’s strong green body lost its vibrancy, as it turned a pale white, shriveling up until no bigger than an earthworm.

That little pillar tried to move its mouth, as if it wished to speak to me one last time.

As if it wanted to leave me some final message, that would maybe convey a hint of ancient wisdom, some crucial little tidbit of knowledge that it had forgotten to impart to me before it metamorphosized.

But before that could happen, its mouth went still, a painful stillness, and soon it went out of focus and disappeared behind what looked like wings in the making.

I had to shake off an onslaught of sadness I did not see coming.

The little caterpillar of a creature looked like nothing more than a pale morning shadow, or a chrysalis, if you were to really think long and hard about it.

All that remained, suspended upside down in the air, was a mournful, bloated and exhausted eye.

That want do you any good, I thought to it.

You can look all you want, but you can’t say a damn thing. You can’t do a thing about it. Your existence is over, finished, done.

So I’ll speak on your behalf.

If a caterpillar were to weave itself into a tomb of saliva and amber, enclose itself there, wilt there, then die there, would that make it a cadaver of sorts?

And if so, what would happen next?

Soon the eye dissolved into emptiness, while the room filled back up with a honey hue of sunshine.

And from the cadaver of that little pillar, a whole flight of glorious and vibrant colors spawned and unfolded themselves with beautiful wings, only to fly with graceful ease out of the door from which it earlier crawled.

Now, who in their right mind would have ever thought that such a cute and scary looking little creature was a beautiful present to one’s self without even being able to recognize it?

Apparently me!

Til the next time...

Ryan Love