PART SIXTEEN: A Small Brown Pile with a Toad’s Head and a Narcissus Moment.
((Extract from a speech made by the Spider to the Fly earlier in the Narrative, and not yet fully reported, which will be introduced somewhere so that this next passage can be fully understood:)
“The uncultivated natives of the vicinity all have mouths in perfect working order. Yet do they ever think about the amazing capabilities inherent in that breathtaking piece of divine engineering? …..These gross and wriggling slime-pit peasants all around us use their pitiful apologies for a mouth only for one thing! For EATING!
“They stuff this marvel of divine engineering with undigested lumps of gook and lick their greasy lips in gross and gob-smacked self-satisfaction for having lived to eat another day!
-And what is the final objective? asked the Fly indifferently, scratching at her leg again.
-The final objective sadly is the same for all, whether fleshy, furry or feathered, said the Spider in disgust.
-It is to drag God’s beauty of creation through a thousand feet of noisome, bacteria-ridden intestinal stink-pits so that every twenty-four hours by the side of the Great Highway of Life they may leave a signed brown offering to Him, as proof and token of their whining happiness that He has let them live another day.
-And of course, he added sadly, -we too are no different in the end from them. And I greatly fear it will soon be too late for dinner”.))
***
-What can it be? thought the Fly. They have never even noticed this little fly before. Now they too are all running away from me. She turned and looked behind her, wondering if there was something she had missed. She herself was not at all inclined to remain in the firing line of a living toad’s tongue, if that was really what had frightened the audience away.
But there was nothing there. Nothing but the same reedy stems around her and chocolate darkness between them. She herself was the only figure crouching by the edge of the pool.
-I am no hungry predator, she thought. But it certainly seemed to be her own appearance at the scene that was the cause of the Great Panic, and not the arrival of some predatory amphibious monster.
Even so, she did not feel at ease. She recalled the Spider’s opinion of the creatures that lived out their lives in this dog-eat-dog-jungle down in the dark deeps beside the pond.
The details were a little vague in her memory but the gist of it was clear. If there were no dogs to eat, the eater moved on down the food chain until it reached an alternative menu with the object of transmogrifying it into a messy brown pile on the surface of the Sidewalk of Life. For the greater part of the afternoon the Fly had heroically avoided becoming either an edible link or a messy pile of something brown and for the whole part of what was left she wished to remain avoided. After that she would take things one day at a time.
Darkness and the proximity of ponds inspire dark and ponderous thoughts. The night is after all an unhealthy experience. If you are small and defenceless it is often your last. For a small fly whose stated aim in life was to dance in the sunlight until she threw up it was a very dark moment indeed.
- The Spider was right, she mused, this territory must be full of teeth of an unpoetic bent and questions of an un-rhetorical nature. She began to imagine she was surrounded by the kind of open mouths that have no appetite for metre but an abiding taste for meat.
But the Fly, although she did not know it yet, was neither small nor defenceless.
((Extract from a speech made by the Spider to the Fly earlier in the Narrative, and not yet fully reported, which will be introduced somewhere so that this next passage can be fully understood:)
“The uncultivated natives of the vicinity all have mouths in perfect working order. Yet do they ever think about the amazing capabilities inherent in that breathtaking piece of divine engineering? …..These gross and wriggling slime-pit peasants all around us use their pitiful apologies for a mouth only for one thing! For EATING!
“They stuff this marvel of divine engineering with undigested lumps of gook and lick their greasy lips in gross and gob-smacked self-satisfaction for having lived to eat another day!
-And what is the final objective? asked the Fly indifferently, scratching at her leg again.
-The final objective sadly is the same for all, whether fleshy, furry or feathered, said the Spider in disgust.
-It is to drag God’s beauty of creation through a thousand feet of noisome, bacteria-ridden intestinal stink-pits so that every twenty-four hours by the side of the Great Highway of Life they may leave a signed brown offering to Him, as proof and token of their whining happiness that He has let them live another day.
-And of course, he added sadly, -we too are no different in the end from them. And I greatly fear it will soon be too late for dinner”.))
***
-What can it be? thought the Fly. They have never even noticed this little fly before. Now they too are all running away from me. She turned and looked behind her, wondering if there was something she had missed. She herself was not at all inclined to remain in the firing line of a living toad’s tongue, if that was really what had frightened the audience away.
But there was nothing there. Nothing but the same reedy stems around her and chocolate darkness between them. She herself was the only figure crouching by the edge of the pool.
-I am no hungry predator, she thought. But it certainly seemed to be her own appearance at the scene that was the cause of the Great Panic, and not the arrival of some predatory amphibious monster.
Even so, she did not feel at ease. She recalled the Spider’s opinion of the creatures that lived out their lives in this dog-eat-dog-jungle down in the dark deeps beside the pond.
The details were a little vague in her memory but the gist of it was clear. If there were no dogs to eat, the eater moved on down the food chain until it reached an alternative menu with the object of transmogrifying it into a messy brown pile on the surface of the Sidewalk of Life. For the greater part of the afternoon the Fly had heroically avoided becoming either an edible link or a messy pile of something brown and for the whole part of what was left she wished to remain avoided. After that she would take things one day at a time.
Darkness and the proximity of ponds inspire dark and ponderous thoughts. The night is after all an unhealthy experience. If you are small and defenceless it is often your last. For a small fly whose stated aim in life was to dance in the sunlight until she threw up it was a very dark moment indeed.
- The Spider was right, she mused, this territory must be full of teeth of an unpoetic bent and questions of an un-rhetorical nature. She began to imagine she was surrounded by the kind of open mouths that have no appetite for metre but an abiding taste for meat.
But the Fly, although she did not know it yet, was neither small nor defenceless.
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