The Realm of the Insect

mantis – photo by The Kettle Slayer

Blood and plastic. The entrance to the hive was filled with the smell. Every day, every going in and coming out, that smell stayed with me. I breathed it for hours and later tried in vain to shampoo it out of my hair. It was the smell of the hive. It was the smell of all of us.

The hive metaphor only stretched so far. Didn’t cover all of the pieces of the hospital. Many female worker bees, yes. Queen Bee and attendants, yes. But even more inhabitants burrowed and climbed through the bloody, plastic-y halls. Termites, beetles, moths spiraling ever closer to self-immolation, mayflies, katydids, mosquitoes and whirligig beetles. Representatives of the realm of the insect met in this place and established the hive as I knew it. As I knew it then.

boxelder bugs – Talarico House April 2013

At the beginning, I didn’t know which insect I was. I tried on several roles, shedding each in a wild, cross-species metamorphosis until there was no more changing to do. It took a very long time. Too long. Or just enough. One of those.

meditation even unto death – the big hospital July 2013